Ezgi Isbilen

Tectonics, construction history, history of technology, conflict urbanism, and borderlands

Architectural Design Studios, Interdisciplinary Design Studios, Architectural History and Theory

peer reviewed journal articles

2023 Isbilen E. ‘Desert Dreams and Techno-Utopian Nightmares: The Complex History of

California City and the Colonial Gaze Towards the Desert’ Journal of Architectural Education 77:2, 265-277.

2023 Isbilen E. ‘The Unbearable Lightness of an Open System: The Packaged House 1941-47’ Footprint 31, 67-84

2019 Isbilen E ‘A Virtual City Scratched on Desert Dust: California City and the allure of the blank slate’ Western Humanities Review, Fall 2019, 72.3, 101-135 peer reviewed book chapters

2019 Isbilen E. ‘Tabula Rasa: Konrad Wachsmann’s Universalism after the Universal

Connector’ in The Art of Joining: Konrad Wachsmann and the “Universal Connector” Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau.

2019 Isbilen E. ‘Ceilings of Infinite Extension: Konrad Wachsmann’s Mediating ‘Overhead’’ in

Ceiling and Dreams: The Architecture of Levity edited by Paul Emmons, Federica Goffi and Jodi La Coe, Routledge.

published translations

2012 Jeffrey Hildner, “Biçimcilik: Hamle│Anlam”, in Mimari Biçimcilik, Eskişehir: Eskişehir Osmangazi Ünivesitesi Yayınları, p.23-32.

Translated from: Jeffrey Hildner, ‘Formalism: Move│Meaning,’ Proceedings, 84th ACSA Annual Meeting Theory and Criticism 1996, p.251-157.

2011 Dankmar Adler, “Islev ve Çevre” in Biçim ve İşlev: Günümüzde Biçim ve İşlev

Tartismasının neresindeyiz? Eskişehir: Eskişehir Osmangazi Ünivesitesi Yayınları, p.23- 32.

Translated from: Dankmar Adler, ‘Function and Environment’, in Roots of Contemporary American Architecture, edited by Lewis Mumford.1952, p.244-64.

other publications

2024 İşbilen E. ‘Concrete Steps—The METU campus in Ankara’ in the digital atlas "Schools of

Departure", a research project by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. https://atlas.bauhausdessau.de/en/journal/pedagogies-of-machine-learning/concrete-steps-the-metu-campus-in-ankara

2021 Yiğit Acar, Ezgi İşbilen, Pınar Oktar, Sare Nur Avcı and Abdulkadir Kayalı ‘Modern

Mimarlığın Sürdürülmesi: Cebeci Stadı ve Aşti Üzerine Denemeler’[Sustaining Modern

Architecture: Experiments on Cebeci Stadium and AŞTİ], Dosya 49: Mimari Tasarım

Stüdyolarında Ankara'nın Geleceğini Kavramak, Nur Çağlar and Selda Bancı (eds.) Ankara: TMMOB Ankara.

2013 Gucyeter B., Isbilen E. ‘Proje V – Greenpeace Genel Merkezi, İzmir’ [Project V:

Greenpeace Headquarters in İzmir] Codex 3, p.66-71.

2012 İşbilen E. ‘beden, etkileşim, mimarlık’ [body, Interaction, architecture] Betonart, Vol. 35, pp.56-62.

2010 İşbilen E. ‘Aracın ve Sürecin Değişimi Üzerine’ [Changing Tools and Changing Processes] in Critical Readings in Architecture, Ankara: Mimarlar Dernegi 1921, 2010.3

Conference Presentations and Invited Talks

2025 “Tekrar, Takdir, Terakki: Ernst Egli’nin Modern Türkiye’nin inşasına katkıları” [Repetition,

Recognition, Progression: Ernst Egli’s contributions to the construction of Modern

Turkey], 19 April 2025, Resim Heykel Müzesi, Ankara, Turkey.

This talk was part of the ‘Swiss Traces in Ankara Through the Lens of Schwarzenbach’ exhibition organized by

the Swiss Embassy in Ankara, and curated by Burçak Yakıcı, for the 100 years of Swiss-Turkish Friendship.

2024 “Discursive Images: From word and image to text-like images” Paper presented at 12.

Architekturtheoretisches Kolloquium der Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin: Text und Bild, 25–28 April 2024, Einsiedeln, Switzerland.

2024 “Desert Urbanism(s) and Spatial Justice: The dark side of Environmental Design"

Invited Lecture as part of ‘Design Justice’ course taught by Clarissa Mendez at Clemson University, School of Architecture, 29 March 2024, Online.

2023 :Stüdyoda Sürdürülebilirliğin Aritmetiği [ : Arithmetics of Sustainability in Design Education], invited talk with Dr. Yigit Acar, October 12, 2023, Ankara.

This talk was part of the Future Spaces session of the New European Bauhaus Days organized by Ankara AKS & New European Bauhaus, sponsored by European Union.

2022 “Unpacking the Packaged House” Invited Talk, December15, 2022, Bilkent University, Department of Architecture, Ankara.

2022 “Architecture as Camouflage: The New Face of Bunker Scape as Smart Village in the South Caucasus” Paper presented [online] at SAHGB Conference 2022: The Architecture of Borderlands, May 17, 2022.

2018 “Centers and Peripheries: Universal Connector as a point of intersection” Paper presented at Research in Practice conference, November 2-14, Washington Alexandria Architecture Center, Alexandria VA.

2018 “The Virtual City Scratched on Dust” Paper presented at Spectral Cities Conference, hosted by the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, Nov. 2-3, 2018, Calgary, Canada.

2018 “text and context: Reflections on Turning Point of Building” Bauhaus Lab 2018 Symposium, August 9, 2018, Dessau, Germany.

2018 “Minding the Gap: Drawing architecture with clear lines” Paper presented at College Art

Association Annual Conference, SAH sponsored session “Speech Balloons and Thought Bubbles: Architecture and Cartoons.” Los Angeles, Feb. 21-24.

GRANTS & FELLOWSHIPS

2019 Outstanding Doctoral Student Award, Granted by the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, Virginia Tech.

2018 AIA NoVA Scholarship, VA.

2018 Bauhaus LAB 2018 Global Modernism Studies Research Fellowship, May 9-August 9.

Fellowship covered residency and stipend.

2018 CAA Graduate student Conference Travel Grant

For 106th Annual Conference in Los Angeles.

2017 UCLA Graduate Symposium Travel Grant

For UCLA Graduate Symposium 2017 on “The Body’s Politic: Architecture and the Modern Subject.”

2010 Publication Award,

In “Critical Readings in Architecture” Student Essay Contest organized by Architects’ Association 1927.