Three Gezi prisoners awarded the 2023 European Prize for Architecture

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Three Gezi Park case prisoners will be named the 18th, 19th, and 20th Laureates of the 2023 European Prize for Architecture on September 15 in Athens, Greece at the foot of the Acropolis.

Ayse Mücella Yapici, Tayfun Kahraman, and Can Atalay have been recognized by the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design for their activism and given the European Prize for Architecture.

The honor is European architecture's highest award given to individuals "who have made a commitment to forward the principles of European humanism and the art of architecture." Last year's winner was the German architect Christoph Ingenhoven. Past winners have included Bjarke Ingels, Santiago Calatrava, Henning Larsen Architects, and Wolfgang Tschapeller.

"For warning in advance about the devastating consequences of the February 2023 Earthquakes"

The Architect's Newspaper (AN), published monthly in New York in the US since 2003 announced the selection of Tayfun Kahraman, Can Atalay, and Mücella Yapıcı for the prize.

Accordingly, the award committees selected Yapici, Kahraman, and Atalay after they were given 18-year prison sentences for treason and "speaking out against social injustice in Turkey and for warning in advance about the devastating consequences of the February 2023 Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria." 

Introducing the three "political prisoners," the newspaper reminded its readers that Tayfun Kahraman reported on the devastating toll of the recent earthquakes that rocked Turkey and Syria for them recently and that he was executive board chairman of the Chamber of Urban Planners in Turkey.

AN recalled that Can Atalay, who has been elected an MP in the last elections in May but whose release from the prison in order to fulfill his duty in the parliament is still pending, is an attorney for The Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects.

And the newspaper wrote that before her 2022 sentencing, the 74-year-old architect Ayse Mücella Yapici was in the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects and quoted the European Centre for noting her role as a leading figure of "Taksim Solidarity" during the Gezi Park protests and an outspoken critic of the construction boom that's taken place during Erdogan's regime which was cited as a main cause of the massive destruction that ensued from the 2023 earthquakes.

AN also mentioned the names of six other defendants were sentenced to prison terms in Turkey in relation to the Gezi trial, on similar charges, and without evidence. The newspaper named Çiğdem Mater, a Turkish film producer and journalist; Hakan Altınay, director and professor of Political Science in Boğaziçi University and founding president of the Global Civics Academy; Mine Özerden, film director and producer; and Yiğit Ali Ekmekçi, professor, human rights activist and founder of the Nesin and Mesopotamia Foundations, and a member of the founding board of Istanbul Bilgi University.

Osman Kavala was also mentioned, described as "a 64-year-old publisher, human rights defender and philanthropist was sentenced to life in prison."

"Barefaced, unashamed political persecution"

The newspaper also cited Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, president and CEO of The Chicago Athenaeum saying, "This is barefaced, unashamed political persecution, the absence of any moral compass whatsoever, using a state's twisted, corrupt legal apparatus to outrageously frighten, intimate, and severely damage any and all innocent dissent."

Narkiewicz-Laine was also quoted saying, "These preposterous convictions are connected to the initial 2013 Gezi Park protests when urban/architect activists came together to campaign against the Turkish government's plans to demolish the park to build a replica of the Ottoman-era Taksim Military Barracks that would include a shopping mall."

The European Centre's Museum in Athens will host the gala dinner at the Acropolis in honor of the three who will be given the prize that the Architect's Newspaper names as "political prisoners."

(AEK/PE)