We decided to focus on a small residence with limited number of rooms, a fine Aegean restaurant, a gallery in which monasteries and similar buildings of Cunda, Ayvalık and environs are displayed along with the Monastery of St. John. In addition, we tried to revive the church. Nothing has been done so far, as the building surveys and restitution projects have been waiting for approval from the Council of Monuments for the last five years.




︎︎︎The survey work carried out by Sıdıka Bebekoğlu.

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Located merely 500 meters away from the restaurants on the quay facing south in Cunda, Ayvalık, in the area strangely known as Tavuk Adası (Chicken Island) today, the Monastery of St. John was blown up and demolished with dynamite in 1947. Today, only the wall remains of the monastery and the church in its middle are intact. However, we have many photographs of it prior to demolition. We know quite a bit about what it looked like on the outside in particular. Architect and restorer Sıdıka Bebekoğlu’s detailed research has provided us with a plethora building surveys and restitution projects based on her knowledge and projections. Using all this data, we developed a design on the reconstruction of memories and not buildings, following the traces of the past.