A Stained Glass Artist in Modern Architecture of Turkey: Mazhar Nazım Resmor

Mazhar Nazım Resmor’un Vitray Üretimleri

Abstract

In architectural historiography, the historian tends to see the main actor as the architect and forget other actors contributed to
the architectural oeuvre. This study is an attempt to deconstruct that general history-writing methodology, focusing on an artist who contributed to spatial production. The topic of this study is the biography of Mazhar Resmor (1901-1977), a pioneering actor in the modern stained glass of Turkey, and his work in architecture. Stained glass, which forms its narratives through composition, light, and colors, has the potential to tame the serious machine aesthetics of modern architecture stereotypes of modern architecture with a human touch (with handmade production and filtering of daylight). The art defines a privileged relationship with the space, due to the transparency of the main material (glass), and the power to re-determine the light values of the space depending on time, however, it has not been discussed before in Turkey’s modern architecture and design history literature has been the starting point of this study. This article aims to gather the archival documents about Mazhar Nazım Resmor and his work and evaluate them. To access the information, periodical publishing of newspapers and magazines and secondary resources were scanned and oral history work with the artist’s relatives and Marmara University academics was conducted. In this frame, to do a conceptual evaluation, stained glass’s symbolic and cultural meaning is investigated in its evolution in history. After graduating from Paris Decorative Arts School in 1932, Mazhar Resmor returned to Turkey. In his first years in Turkey, he designed exhibitions, starting from the 1930s till 1970, he designed numerous stained glass works in both dwellings, public buildings, and also special projects. His work dated 1945, for Markiz Patisserie which is a place where many intellectual people gathered on Beyoğlu İstiklal Street, is a breaking point for the artist. He designed many important stained glasses in an époque the material industry had not been developed. Many of his works show a universal approach close to Art-Deco except for some works in the years when the local-universal debates in art were continuing. Although Resmor did not bring a lot of stylistic novelties to the art, his technical novelty was important which he learned during his experience in Mauméjean Frères Workshops in Paris. His first application of the leaded glass technique is an important threshold of stained-glass art in Turkey. In this article, after presenting general information about stained glass art and a biography of the artist, his work will be investigated in terms of spatial references, other actors of the production, style and technical properties, meaning, and representation. The stained glass had a small place compared to other art that collaborated with architecture especially accelerated after the late 1950s. However, it commenced appearing in architecture in the early years due to its cultural roots. Resmor’s works are predominantly figurative compositions, in repeating concepts, done with repetition of certain modules, it can be said that his work was limited in certain forms, the stylistic freedom and abstraction in the art were realized by the younger generation of artists. It is seen that some of Resmor’s designs have a narrative aspect, related to the existing design features of the buildings or some represented the customer or the institution’s identity. Resmor designed the stained glass work for dwellings that belong to elite people in society. Those works could be seen as a representation of their power and class. In many of his works, he collaborated with architects who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, which shows that he was known in that social circle. He worked as an educator in two institutions-Beyoğlu Girl Institute and Tatbiki High School of Fine Art- that gives importance to producing and workshop studies. That reveals his attitude to producing and transferring his experience to the younger generation. His work shared the same end as other artwork in architecture, only very few of them could be preserved. That situation emphasizes many other studies should be conducted to document Turkish art and architecture. Not only the place of stained glass in architecture was aimed to be understood but the study also contributes to understanding the decorator identity of the époque and remembering a forgotten figure in the design history of Turkey.