Bomontiada

The Bomonti Brewery, which was established in Istanbul in the early 1890s with the private enterprise of the Swiss Bomonti Brothers, is an important industrial heritage that allowed the development of the Bomonti district, which it gave its name also, as an industrial zone. The brewery stopped producing beer in 1994 yet historical development of the complex and the industrial structures are still ongoing today.

Five structures of brewery complex which were built between 1893 and 1924, were forming the main complex of beer production. The Bomonti Brewery has undergone a structural process of removal, reconstruction and transformation since the first period of establishment, and today there are abundant traces of the historical process of these structures. The building blocks of the brewery complex form adjacent regular street silhouettes with an open courtyard in the middle of the building blocks.

In 1930 with opening of Bomonti Beer Garden in front of the factory site, the brewery had gained an great social and cultural potential as well as its industrial importance. The foundations of the neighborhood’s common living culture were laid in these years by the beer garden. Thus, the beer garden becomes emblem of the culture of meeting, living and having fun together.

The brewery, which remained vacant after production stopped in 1994, was rented by Bomonti corporation with the approval of the Council of Monuments in 2015 and re-functioned by preserving its original structure. The factory buildings and beer garden were renamed Bomontiada after this restoration. The renovated brewery buildings are functioning as a nice complex where people gather, eat, drink, a place that host events, art spaces and many workshops. The public courtyard of the complex gets all the users together with different types of events and spaces. The courtyard, which is an important part of Bomontiada, needed a new scenario after six years of first opening the complex, contributing to the needs of the users and the continuity of public life.

With this new scenario, the principles of reconstruction and transformation in the historical process of the Bomonti Brewery campus, manifested themselves in architectural and landscape design. The new project developed for the courtyard that aims to the conservation of industrial and cultural heritage, was designed with an innovative and experimental approach in terms of form and materials, also to keep the public life dinamic, flexible and transformative.

Temporary landscape installation formed by a scaffolding structure with plants is an additional space created for responding to the scenario of the next 10 years together and to the newly developing needs, strengthening the existing courtyard life. The plants on the scaffolding structure play the role of landscape installation and the facade allows different usage scenarios: A performance stage and two towers as pop-up stores for food and beer sales during the events. The vertical garden is created with plants that were repotted into recycled wooden pallets and placed on each level of scaffolding with forklifts.

The custom-made irrigation system is designed to adapt to different heights in the garden. In response to adaptability, a detachable scaffolding system was planned as a main structure that minimizes the impact on the ground. The structure, which is planned as a peaceful landscape installation during the day, turns into a performance stage in the evening with a lighting system. The form was emphasized with the selection of upcycling materials: a fabric enhances the structure of the tower and a steel fabric that interacts with sunlight.