2026




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Anatomy of Inspiration

I was a keynote speaker at the 18th Istanbul Biennial (2025) for the Anatomy of Inspiration talk series!

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Tactical Urbanism Now!
Our project From Soil to Soil: Stitching the Food Cycle through Landscapes and Cultures, with Fernando Sanchez for the Tactical Urbanism Now! competition by TerraViva, was selected as one of the finalists!

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ABOUT
Zeynep Igmen is an architect and researcher specializing in sustainable and socially just architectural and urban practices, based in London and Istanbul. Her work engages with cultural discourses, environmental history, territorial conflicts across land- and waterscapes, and their intersections with material and immaterial cultures. She also explores spatial tectonics and hands-on, low-tech making. In parallel, she contributes to the Latinization of Ottoman Turkish documents and literature.

The Bartlett School of Architecture UCL 2024-2025
MA Architecture and Historic Urban Environments 

          thesis titled “A Practice of Fishing along the Bosphorus: Mapping Dalyans as Sites of Collective Making and Memory”

Uskudar University 2024-2025
MA Sufi Culture and Literature

           final project titled “Tawakkul, Vigour, and Building in the Narrative of Prophet Noah”

Istanbul Bilgi University 2019-2023
BArch Architecture (High Honours)

London College of Music 2007-2022
Classical Piano, Grade 8


Curriculum Vitae
CONTACT Email




2026

Figure 01 A vapur and kayıks on the European shoreline of the Bosphorus, 1903 (Anonymous, 1903)

Between Shores, Between Ideas:
The Istanbul Vapur as a Mobile Urban Current


Between Shores, Between Ideas: The Istanbul Vapur as a Mobile Urban Current investigates the Istanbul vapur, the steam ferry, as a central infrastructural, cultural, and symbolic element in the formation of the city’s spatial and social modernity, serving as a dynamic ground within the urban landscape. Focusing on the period between 1844 and 1945, the research explores how the vapur transitioned from a mere means of transport into a shared urban habitat and floating archive, navigating both literal and metaphorical waters between continents, classes, genders, and temporal orders. Rooted in the late Ottoman Empire and early Republic of Türkiye, the vapur has served as a crucial part of the city’s transportation system while simultaneously functioning as a space for cultural exchange, conversation, and intellectual discourse. Accordingly, it has played a role in reflecting historical continuity and change by tracing the daily lives of Istanbul’s residents through their journeys aboard.


Figure 02 People buying tickets at pier, no date (Vapur iskelesinden bilet alan insanlar - People buying tickets at pier, no date)

Vapurs served as “floating archives” where encounters between Ottoman subjects—Turks, Greeks, Armenians, or French (Gürpınar, 2021)—were staged through everyday rituals: buying tickets, boarding, negotiating space, listening to radio broadcasts or live music, eating at the onboard buffet, peeking at one another’s readings, or simply gazing at the city from the water (Alus, 1995, pp. 83–89). First-person accounts, literature, and periodicals reveal how these vessels functioned as spaces of inclusion, tension, and spectacle. The temporalities of vapurs, regulated by both Alaturka and Alafranga time systems, reflect broader negotiations between Islamic tradition and Western modernity, as well as the transformation of urban rhythm and state order. The standardized timetables and bells of the vapurs began to reframe not only mobility but also the perception of time in the late Ottoman city.

The essay further unpacks class and gender dynamics aboard these vessels. Until 1850, Muslim women were barred from riding vapurs due to the lack of designated spaces; later, curtains, partitions, and women-only cabins were introduced. Only in 1923, following the proclamation of the Republic, were these segregations abolished, marking a critical moment in the urban visibility and rights of women (Anonymous, 1923). Similarly, ticket classes—luxury, first, and second—enforced social stratification within a shared physical space. Yet, the fixed routes and confined movements in the vapuralso fostered unexpected proximities and interactions between social groups, making them spaces of both division and encounter.


Figure 03 Deck of a vapur, 1924-28 (Fabrika Fotoğrafhanesi, 1924-28)

Beyond, vapurs also shaped Istanbul’s sensory urban memory. The sounds of whistles, each signaling maneuvers or emergencies, and the glow of navigation lights became part of the city’s aural and visual identity. These elements positioned the vapur not just as a connector of place, but as a performer of urban modernity.

By treating the vapur as an urban lens, the essay challenges land-centric approaches to Istanbul’s history. The Bosphorus and its ferries offer a fluid, alternative urban narrative; one that privileges coexistence, ephemerality, and relational spatiality. As such, the vapur becomes both a symbol and agent of Istanbul’s shifting identity: a current connecting Asia and Europe, past and future, private and public. Ultimately, the vapur is not merely a vessel but a spatial practice, an embodied experience shaped by movement, encounter, and memory upon the water.

Alus, S. M. (1995). İstanbul Kazan Ben Kepçe (pp. 83–89). İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları.

Anonymous. (1903). Boğaz’ın Avrupa kıyısında vapur ve kayıklar – Steamship and small boats on the European shoreline of the Bosphorus. IFEA. https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/8023

Anonymous. (1923, December 29). İstanbul hanımlarının on, on beş senelik bir mücadeleden sonra elde ettikleri ilk hürriyet mükafatı: Vapur ve tramvay perdelerinin ılgası [Illustration]. Resimli Gazete. https://sayisalarsiv.ibb.gov.tr/yordambt/yordam.php?undefined#

Bali, A. (2020). Vapurlarıyla İstanbul. İstanbul: İBB Yayınları.

Cantok, B. (1944). Boğaziçinde seyrü sefer. In İstanbul Ansiklopedisi (Vol. 6, pp. 2888–2896). https://istanbulansiklopedisi.org/handle/rek/7042

Fabrika Fotoğrafhanesi. (1924–1928). Seyr-i Sefain İdaresi ve Şirket-i Hayriye ile ilgili fotoğraflar. https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/208855

Gürpınar, H. S. (2021). Nimetşinas. İstanbul: Kapra Yayıncılık.

Vapur iskelesinden bilet alan insanlar - People buying tickets at pier. (n.d.). https://archives.saltresearch.org/handle/123456789/123006

Walsh, R. (1838). A residence at Constantinople, during a period including the commencement, progress, and termination of the Greek and Turkish revolutions (2nd ed., Vol. 1). London: Richard Bentley.