UIA 2005 Istanbul Organization Committee is thankful to the following for their support of the keynote speakers:

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture
American Institute of Architects, AIA
Assembly of Turkish Exporters, TIM
Chamber of Architects of Morocco
Israel Association of United Architects
Italian Cultural Centre, Istanbul
Royal Australian Institute of Architects, RAIA
Technical Chamber of Greece
Arcelor
Marshall
VitrA Building Materials Group
Yunus Aran Fellowship

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I would like to thank the intelligent mind(s) that formulated such brilliant theme at this specific point in time and put it in the forefront of scientific debates in the coming UIA's Congress. I am very much fascinated with the letter "S" at the end of its theme, "Cities: Grand Bazaar of ArchitectureS," marking the plural frontier of the global architectural debates. It is not only a capital S that may imply the global collectivity of our architectural profession, and its products but it is also an italic, or tilted "S" as it appears in the Congress bulletin. This may imply too allowing diversity in orientation and deviation from the polarity of norms, e.g., dogmas, materials, prices, etc. The metaphoric frontier of "S" may, therefore, indict that in such "Grand Bazaar of ArchitectureS" the global ideology will commensurate with the individual liberty of cultures for accenting the local expressions. Both competitive ideologies, the global and the local, will then live side by side and support each other to paving the paths for creating the architecture of excellence that would be the engines for city development. This may be the optimistic image of the letter S.

On the contrary, one can also observe it, as it criticizes the reality of cities or it warns us about their future. The pessimistic eye may see that there will be no such master trend appearing in the designs of the architectural goods or products of many Bazaars that speaks on behalf of their localities, indicating the likely negative externalities of the hegemony of globalization. The letter S in this case may warn us and say: “I am the guard angel of the polyphonic Bazaar, the polyarchitectonic city of all times. It is the free zone of exporting all architectural trends and the market of selling the products of all architectural typologies without levying any protective or conservative local tariff. It's the Grand Bazaar of all nations, all human races, all eras, all dogmas, all ideologies and all architectural thoughts; do you have any problem with that? If you don't care, I am here only to warn you before travelling in time and entering into its future paradigm; you may feel inside that you have lost the sense of place and time. If afterwards you are still conscious enough, try to think about the identity of my city; does it have any? Try to identify too, does it have any sense of direction? I wonder if you can then observe any width or any length for my Grand Bazaar; the real nature of it is not as you think; it is not such small spot on the globe; it covers the whole surface of the globe. The false notion is to think that our blue spherical world that we call it now Earth, i.e., my Grand Bazaar, with all it architectural products could be shrunk and cloned into an array of two dimensional market domains at every living spot on its sphere. If at then you thought that this is the sort of perfect city image that you were dreaming about, make sure that you are in the state of unconsciousness. You can not clone the ten human races into a new prototype creature(s), replacing all of you; the globe will be then the ugliest or the most catastrophic environment. The merits inherited in the Blacks, the Reds, the Yellows, and the Whites are allowing the diversity of, or in, their genetic identities, while they are all perfect, creative, and permanent members in our Grand Bazaar. As I have said earlier, I have been asked only to warn our future visitors of creative minds; this is my eternal duty at the main door of our supreme Grand Bazaar. It is up to you then to warp the future spatial images and economic states of its array of living architectural spots, the minor Bazaars. If you are not sure about the outcomes of your next move, leave the invisible but creative hand in them as is, or follow the perfect laws of our Mother Nature."

The above is describing the dual meaning s that I see them inherent in the beauty of placing the letter S at the end of the Congress theme.