Musicographics Workshop, Bauhaus Festival, YTU/Istanbul

I had the utmost pleasure of returning to my former architecture faculty, Yıldız Technical University (YTU) in Istanbul, Turkey, to take part in the Bauhaus Workshops Festival, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus design school. As part of the program, I led a two-day Musicographics workshop with architecture students. It was a unique opportunity to reconnect with my academic roots and to share this project in an interdisciplinary environment.

The workshop was supported by architect and assistant researcher Elif Çelik and student assistant İdil Mersin, whose contributions were essential in facilitating the process. Participants included students from architecture, urban design, and industrial design backgrounds, traveling from various cities across Turkey to attend.

Write your teThe first half of the opening day was devoted to presenting the Musicographics project. We introduced the core concepts, discussed the relationship between architecture and music, and explored how patterns, time, and structure could form a shared language between the two disciplines. We also examined and analyzed the works of composers and thinkers who explored similar ideas, including Iannis Xenakis, György Ligeti, İlhan Usmanbaş, John Adams, and Fred Lerdahl & Charles Wheeler, sparking open discussions among the students.

In the second half of the day, the students began developing their own subjects and “timelines” to convert into graphic notations. These timelines varied widely: some were drawn from buildings they had designed or studied, others from experiences of urban transportation, and still others from mapping processes such as film or theatre production. This diversity highlighted how flexible Musicographics can be as a method of rethinking time, structure, and artistic translation.

On the second day, the students worked directly with our guest performer, guitarist Efe Demiral. Each student had one-on-one time with him to refine their pieces, test their ideas in performance, and adjust their scores. The workshop concluded with a final concert by Efe, featuring all of the students’ compositions in a live performance. The result was both experimental and deeply personal, as each piece reflected the unique perspective of its creator.

The final works can be viewed in the YouTube playlist here