Mimar Kemaleddin

Ahmed Kemaleddin (; 187013 July 1927), widely known as Mimar Kemaleddin (Architect Kemaleddin) was a Turkish architect, and one of the leading figures of the First National architectural movement, alongside Vedat Tek.

Early years Ahmed Kemaleddin was born in 1870 to a middle-class Ottoman family in the Acıbadem neighborhood of Istanbul. His father was Miralay Ali Bey, a naval captain, and his mother was Sadberk Hanım. In 1875, he began with his primary education at the İbrahim Ağa Primary School. He continued his secondary education in 1881 in Crete, then part of the Ottoman Empire, due to his father's assignment. Returning soon after to Istanbul, he graduated from high school.

In 1887, at the age of 17, he enrolled in the School of Civil Engineering (, now Istanbul Technical University). Kemaleddin graduated as an engineer with honours in 1891. He then remained at his alma mater and worked as an assistant for four years. During this period, he created his own works in his office he had opened outside the university.

He designed four railway stations for the Oriental Railway Company. For his successful work at the construction of Plovdiv Central railway station, he was tasked with the design of railway stations of Thessaloniki and Edirne. At the railway station of Thessaloniki, only the foundations were completed. The railway station of Edirne could be completed in 1914.

In 1908, he built a girls' high school in Edirne, which went 1910 in education. He was invited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to carry out restoration work on the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He accepted the invitation and went to Jerusalem, which had come under British Mandate from Ottoman Empire after World War I. He stayed there a while. For his successful restoration work, Mimar Kemaleddin Bey was awarded with honorific membership by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). After returning home, he focused his works on buildings in Ankara, the new capital of the Republic.

Notable works He designed among others the Tayyare Apartments, built between 1919 and 1922 in Istanbul, which were redeveloped in 1985 into luxury hotel premises. His another work Istanbul 4th Vakıf Han was converted into a five-star World Park Hotel.

Notable works of him include: and Sinan Pasha Madrasa Bandırma Haydar Çavuş Mosque Tomb of Ahmed Cevad Pasha, Istanbul (1901) Plovdiv Central Station (1908) Kamer Hatun Mosque, Beyoğlu, Istanbul (1911) Bebek Mosque, Istanbul (1913) Library of Istanbul University's Faculty of Letters (1913) Restoration of Edirne Railway Station (1914) Istanbul 1st Vakıf Han (1918) Tayyare Apartments, Istanbul (1922) Projecting of restoration work for Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem (1925) Istanbul 4th Vakıf Han (1926) Ankara 2nd Vakıf Han (Ankara Evkaf Apartment) died during its construction (1927)

Completion of Ankara Palas Ankara Palas Hotel demonstrates characteristics of the First Turkish national architectural movement. Completion of Ankara Palas, a project started by Vedat Tek, was Kemaleddin Bey's first design project after arriving in Ankara. The hotel was designed in 1924 by Architect Vedad Bey, but when he left the project the hotel was built according to Kemaleddin Bey's new design and opened for business in the autumn of 1927.

The hotel was the setting for Ankara's important political and social meetings, particularly during the early years of the Republic, and was a venue for welcoming all the important guests of the state.

The large balcony with pointed arches on the axially planned rectangular mass' axis, the raised mass and its domed entrance emphasize its orientalist appearance and monumental aspect. There is an ornate ballroom receiving daylight from above.

The limitation of traditional decoration to balcony parapets and console stones balances the Orientalist emphasis.

Main building of Turkish State Railways The main building of Turkish State Railways in Ankara was Kemaleddin Bey's last design. The foundations of the building were made a month after the architect's death and construction was completed in 1928. These multi storey residences that were actually designed for railway employees were used temporarily and then permanently by the administration.

According to available documents the building that is identified together with the 19th May Square in front of Ankara Station and the station itself was designed as an apartment built around a spacious inner courtyard. However, only one third of the section in the station direction was completed. In spite of the projections made on each axis for axial emphasis, the central corridor plan and texture of the facade with flat square windows is austere. The decorative ironwork of the high gate opening into the courtyard and the large rosace patterned ironwork in the half circle arch above it is incomparable.

Gazi Institute of Education, Ankara

The building of Gazi Institute of Education is one of Kemaleddin Bey's last works. Its design was completed in 1927 and its construction in 1930; the same year in which the school began its educational programme.

The building consists of four storeys including the basement and occupies a large rectangular area. Two inner courtyards symmetrically aligned with the entrance axis are surrounded with a corridor system in the axial plan. The midsection on the axis is five storeys high with a sixth floor over the entrance used as an observatorium.

The entrance porch accessed by wide steps is indicated with colossal columns and high arches. On the upper veranda a distinctive balance and decorative accent pattern is achieved with the lintels of pairs of flat arched dwarf.

The classicist fiction of the 'losenge' patterned colonnades in the entrances allow the magnificence of the building to be sensed on a human scale.

Honours A street across Sirkeci Railway Terminal and crossing Hamidiye Cad., on which his masterpiece Istanbul 4th Vakıf Han is situated, is named in his honour. In 2009, a new series of Turkish lira banknotes went into circulation. The reverse side of the 20-lira banknote depicts Mimar Kemaleddin, together with one of his major works, the rectorate building of Gazi University in Ankara.