Invisible to the Eye

Sinan Logie is Belgian on his father’s side and Turkish on his mother’s. He studied architecture in Brussels and worked for a while in a prominent firm there, before deciding to return to his country he grew up in as a child. He offers a synthesis of Belgian self-mockery and the humorous fatalism of the Stamboulians. He first worked classically as an architect on his return to Istanbul, and took part in some important projects before distancing himself. Sinan Logie now teaches architecture at Bilgi University and organises urban walks with his students, during which he reveals the city’s sprawling mutations, the past, the neighbourhoods that are being erased by sprawling development, and the traces of expelled minorities. Committed, mischievous and erudite, he has published two fascinating books with the anthropologist Yoann Morvan: Istanbul 2023 (Editions B2, 2014), then translated into Turkish by the publisher Iletisim (2017, 3rd edition in 2021), then Méga Istanbul. Traversées en lisières urbaines (Editions Le Cavalier bleu, November 2019).

Yoann Morvan has a doctorate in urban planning and is a research anthropologist at the CNRS. He is an associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies and is particularly interested in the radical changes affecting Istanbul. He has published (with Sinan Logie) Istanbul 2023 (B2). Author of numerous articles about Istanbul, he also conducts research on the Caucasus and the Israeli-Palestinian space. He recently published (co-edited with Thierry Boissière) Un Moyen-Orient ordinaire (Editions Diacritiques, May 2022).