Turkey Revisited
‘For years,’ wrote David Tisherman in his Details column in the June 2005 issue of the magazine, ‘people have asked me where I get my ideas – pools raised out of the ground, the small spillways, the drain details, the modular deck treatments, the color usage and the use of reflection, to name just a few. “Through my design education” is the short answer, of course, but I can get more specific if we take a look at history and visit some precedents.’
‘I [have written before] about traveling to Turkey and chronicled some of what I saw there. This year in March, I went there again with a group of watershaping friends, and together we explored some of the earliest expressions of design details used to this day by me and many others – whether they know it or not!’ He continued:
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‘The richness of Turkey’s history and the variety of design ideas to be found there is so vast that one could spend years touring and delving and digging without seeing everything. Indeed, Turkey has more classical ruins than Greece and Italy combined, and its extraordinary landscape can easily be characterized as a massed synthesis of European, Islamic and Asian cultures and styles.’
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‘The historical, cultural and religious significance of the region was evident at virtually every stop. We saw Greek, Roman and Ottoman ruins, cities whose names feature prominently in the Bible, the Greek settlements of Smyrna and Ephesus and the ancient cities of Pergamum and Sardis as well as some “newer” cities, including Laodicea, Philadelphia and Thyatira.’
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‘In Sardis, we visited the Temple of Artemis – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – and toured bathhouses and scores of limestone ruins. This was nothing like the more-familiar experience of visiting the Parthenon in Athens, elbow to elbow with thousands of other tourists: We were almost alone here and were able to wander the ruins at will, examining the stonework, columns and baths up close.’
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‘We also toured Troy, where we learned that the great city of Homer had been rebuilt seven times through the years, leaving layer upon layer of ruins in a veritable archaeological cornucopia. . . . Wherever we went, we kept tripping over these names out of history books. . . . One of my favorite stops was in the wonderfully named Aphrodisias, the city of Aphrodite, goddess of love. There we saw a 200-meter-long pool, amazing black-and-white checkerboard tile mosaics and bold uses of red marble. Elements of each have, at one time or another, made appearances in my own designs.’
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‘Throughout the trip, I found myself thinking and saying time and again that the designs I develop have been profoundly influenced by this classical heritage and that my work largely involves a spirited adaptation of things I’ve seen in Turkey and elsewhere. None of us can claim to have invented the swimming pool or the fountain or the reflecting pool: What we do is translate and transfer ideas plucked from the annals of design history.’
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‘In all my traveling, . . . I’ve found no better design resource than Turkey. I’ve derived countless details from things I’ve seen there, and I keep going back because I see it as a true laboratory of ideas that cuts across time, cultures and history. This is where, in 1985, I first saw the [perforated] stone drain details I use; this is where I was encouraged to expand my color palette and found the will to propose color schemes and combinations that have seemed outrageous to many of my fellow watershapers.’
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‘Our last evening [in Istanbul] was appropriately spent in a restaurant located within one of the old cisterns near the Blue Mosque. We enjoyed terrific food and reflected on the fabulous experience, and I was happy that all my traveling companions seemed to have reveled in everything we experienced.’
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‘Will this trip influence their designs or their thinking about world history? I can’t say, but I do know that traveling to places like Turkey, Venice, Rome and many other places has transformed my own work as a designer and has helped me elevate my game in myriad ways. To answer a question that was often asked of my companions before our trip,’ David concluded, ‘this is why we all went to Turkey.’
Have your own travels been as instrumental in your development as a watershaper as they clearly have been for David Tisherman? Please share your own stories, sources of inspiration and personal insights in the comment space below!
David Tisherman is the principal in two design/construction firms: David Tisherman’s Visuals of Manhattan Beach, Calif., and Liquid Design of Cherry Hill, N.J. He can be reached at [email protected].