CARRYING THE BURDEN OF THE PAST AND THE FUTURE

The most joyful part of building a structure is to know that the building will live more than your own life span. Your children, grand children and even their children can see those structures that will last for the future. What you create is a very concrete, solid, durable, earthly outcome.
On top of that, imagine the responsibility you are taking while renovating a historical building that has a story. Loading the responsibility of both the past and the future…

A historical building has a background and a personality. The reason why the restoration applications and replanning are harder than the ones for the new buildings is that personality. Because the structure won’t accept disrespect to its age, soul, past and the denial of its presence.

In the restoration projects in Beyoğlu, the struggles of the construction process are accompanied by the struggle to carry on a special process without disturbing the daily social life and making yourself merely invisible. The high end construction technologies suddenly lose their values in this area because the historical texture and the flow of the life won’t let you carry those technologies to the field, let alone use them. After a certain point you are left out with man power as your most important resource.

Based on my experiences up until today, I can say that although the mathematics of the job during the applications of the projects and the steps of the applications are similar, every project have a very unique energy of their own. Your attitude and standing also change with altering aims and sensibilities, changing employers and architectural approaches in each time course.

The key to a well done job is to understand the employer and the architectural group, to set aims and to cerate an accurate administration plan due to the priorities like budget and due dates. After the initiation of the process, the responsibility of carrying the job properly is solely on you as the contractor.

According to myself, to end a project thoroughly means, reaching a high product quality by staying in the time and budget restrictions. This is more than a commercial approach, but a sign of the respect shown to one’s self, job, employer and most importantly to the national values.

As the Siska family, each and every project that we took part in the improving and altering face of Istanbul, was a new experience and accumulation for us. In this point, which we reached by aiming for better and self-crticising each time, we looked back. Our signatures in considerably many prestigious projects became a sign for our own development process and our professionalism which we gained by never losing the amateur spirit. We owe the fact that we were able to pursue the chances life presented us, to the excitement our experiences create in us, and our firm’s face which is young, dynamic and eager to learn.