ARCHITECT KEMALEDDIN: A LIFE AT ONE OF HISTORY'S TURNING POINTS (1870-1927) |
Teaching and Organizing
On graduation from the Hendese-i Mulkiye he was appointed to the teaching staff of Technology and Architecture at the same school and as Prof. Jasmund’s assistant. On his return from Germany where he went to gain knowledge and experience he took up his post at the Hendese-i Mulkiye again. And from that point on he continued to teach. He educated hundreds of students at Sanayi-i Nefise Mekteb-i Alisi (the Academy of Fine Arts), Konduktor Mekteb-i Alisi (the Conductor School) and Muhendis Mekteb-i Alis (the Academy of Engineering).
They were the years when the school of civil engineering was founded and developed as part of the Muhendishane-i Berri-i Humayun (the Military School of Engineering). At the stage when the curriculum of the school was being developed Kemaleddin Bey was running a large number of different courses. It was an open field ranging from Technology and Architecture to Pen and Ink and Shadow Drawing and from Calligraphy to Iron Works. But what is certain is that he transmitted his enthusiasm to the students.
When he was appointed to the Evkaf Nezareti, he took his students to the Building and Reparation Technological Assembly to meet the anticipated demand for intensive and fast production. This permanent staff composed of the talented architects and engineers he had chosen was to turn into a school and its office was to become a production centre, as it were, of the design concept given the name of national architecture.
But that was not all.
It was Kemaleddin Bey who pioneered the founding of the Ottoman Society of Architects and Engineers, and who personally penned the call to the meetings of the Foundation through the Tanin newspaper.
His final role was membership, and subsequently the presidency, of the Council of Fine Arts founded by the Ministry of Education in 1926.