Aylin Atacan

Research Fellow

Aylin is an architectural historian whose research interests encompass the history of classical and modern architecture, antiquity, visuality and architectural representation, spatial narrative, cinema and architecture, and silent film studies. She conducts her studies with the awareness that interdisciplinary research has significant potential for creating an innovative field for academics and developing new educational methods for the discipline of architecture. As a result, she consistently places the relations between cinema and architecture at the core of her academic work.

After completing her BA in architecture, she worked as a professional architect. Subsequently, she transitioned to a role as a research assistant in the Department of Architecture at Middle East Technical University. There, she cultivated her multidisciplinary collaboration skills through activities such as mentoring students, organizing numerous national and international conferences, workshops, and exhibitions, giving public talks, and participating as a lecturer in architectural design studios.

In 2020, she received her PhD in architectural history with a dissertation titled ‘Between Image and Moving Image: Representations of Pompeii in Illustrated Books and Silent Films of the 19th and Early 20th Century’ from Middle East Technical University. This comprehensive study aims to illustrate and analyse the depiction of Pompeii as a site, image, and moving image. This research represents a valuable contribution, as silent films serve as tools to illustrate classical architecture and enhance lecture theatres with their distinctive visual narratives. In 2021, supported by a scholarship from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, she joined UCL as a visiting research fellow. There, she worked on her project entitled ‘The Role of Silent Cinema in the Representation and Education of Classical Architecture.’

Currently she is a PDRA in the AHRC-funded collaborative project "Museum of Dreams: Silent Antiquity Films in the BFI National Archive" (2023-2026). This project will utilize the largest collection of surviving silent antiquity films, housed in the British National Film Archive, as a representative and manageable corpus. The aim is to conduct a systematic analysis of over 70 silent film prints in the British National Film Archive (BFI) that depict ancient Greece and Rome. Through this exploration, the project seeks to firmly position the UK within the global network that contributed to the production, exhibition, and consumption of classical antiquity films in the early twentieth century.

The key questions of the project revolve around understanding how this encounter influenced both the cultural memory of classical antiquity in the modern world and the history of cinema as a global medium. To enhance the research, collaboration with esteemed Project Partners is essential, including the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, The Classical Association, and The Society for Architectural Historians of Great Britain. The collaborative effort of "Museum of Dreams" aims to deliver a cohesive, interdisciplinary, and comparative study of the interaction between classical antiquity and silent cinema. For additional information, visit the Museum of Dreams website.

Publications

Co-author with Lale Özgenel, Hareketli İmajlar-Sessiz Anlatılar: Erken Dönem Sinemasında Antik Kent ve Mekan Temsilleri in Sinema ve Mimarlık (FOL, 2023)
Ankara as a Cinema Set; Reading Architectural History of The City Through ‘Ankara Films’ (Journal of Ankara Studies, 2019)
Rethinking the House in Roman Context from The Perspective of Film Studies (ART- SANAT, 2016)

Talks and presentations

Between Image and Moving Image: Architectural Narratives and Representations of Pompeii. Departmental Research Seminar, Department of Greek & Latin, UCL, 2022
Convergent Architectural (Re) presentations: Visual Narrations of Pompeii in Books and Films. The Archaeology-Heritage-Art (AHA) Research Network Public Program, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, 2022
Ankara as a Cinema Set; ‘Ankara Films’. Architects’ Association 1927 Public Event, 2019
Ankara as a Cinema Set; Reading Architectural History of the city through ‘Ankara Films’. Vehbi Koc Ankara Studies Research Center, 2018
Framing the Alienation Problem of Modern Architecture within Jacques Tati’s Architectural Trio: Mon Oncle, Playtime, Traffic. Moving Images-Static Spaces, Architecture Media and Politics Society Conference (AMPS), 2018
Rethinking the House in Roman Context from the Perspective of Film Studies. HISTART’15 / III. History of Art Conference, DAKAM (Eastern Mediterranean Academic Research Center), 2015