Gökhan Karakuş is an Istanbul-based designer, curator, historian, architecture critic and theorist who focuses on the indigenous in modern architecture and design. He studied architectural history and theory at the Columbia University and Vassar College in New York. He is the founder and director of Emedya Design, an interactive and environmental design studio that has completed a number of large scale wayfinding projects in Turkey that have been published internationally. He has taught design and architecture at Istanbul Technical University (1999-2014), Politecnico di Milano, and Bilgi University, Istanbul.

Mr. Karakuş is a regular contributor to leading global architecture publications such as The Architect’s Journal, Architectural Record, Dwell, and Wallpaper; he was Editorial Director of Natura, Stone Architecture and Interiors from 2011-2015. He is also a curator of exhibitions on architecture and design such as Hyperarchaic Tectonics at the London Design Festival 2014, The Smooth and the Striated Digital Art by Architects at the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair 2013 (focused on computational design as art) and most recently Atölye Maslak (2015) on Istanbul’s craft and maker community in the Maslak industrial district. He is reviewer and nominator for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award. He has been on the Advisory Board for the Turkish National Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennial (2014) and the Istanbul Design Biennial (2016).

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture