Ahmet Ertuğ’s eye for elaborate interiors did not grow from artistic training but rather from his background as an architect. A Turkish photographer, he gradually turned away from designing buildings to capturing the beauty of those that already exist. Ertuğ’s journey would take him from the temples of Japan to the Hagia Sophia to The Martha Stewart Show.
It was the height of 1970s Postmodernism when Ertuğ graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Ertuğ spent the first few years of his career working in the field in England and Iran before receiving a fellowship for his travels to Japan. There, he gained an appreciation for both ancient temples and ordered rituals. He took those lessons with him after returning to Istanbul.
Ertuğ began using his lens to capture the history and culture of his city, particularly the lavish interiors of churches, public buildings, and other heritage sites. His method draws upon a tacit understanding of form and structure: “I put myself in the shoes of the architect who made and designed the building. And I think about where that guy would have stood to look at his work,” he says “The entire soul of the building comes to life in my first photograph.”
Drawing on the complex history of Istanbul, Ertuğ has captured spaces of Ottoman, Roman, and Catholic influence. His domestic fame skyrocketed once he began releasing his photographs in luxury art books. Ertuğ’s publishing house has since produced over 30 of these collections. Ertuğ’s artistic travels have taken him across Turkey and throughout Europe. He is regularly invited to photograph beautiful spaces, including the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Among the notable locations in his oeuvre is the Hagia Sophia, one of Istanbul’s most recognizable and storied landmarks.
Crossing the Atlantic, Ertuğ has also extensively photographed famous American libraries. Deemed one of Boston’s “secular spots that are sacred,” Bates Hall in the Boston Public Library was photographed by the artist earlier this year. Ertuğ captured the space’s signature reading lamps, vaulted ceilings, and semicircular apse in a photo that came to auction in October.
Photos from Ertuğ have been displayed in solo exhibitions at La Conciergerie, the Tuileries Gardens, the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna, and the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. Though Ertuğ remains lesser known in much of North America, his work has not gone entirely unrecognized. Some argue that Ertuğ has gone beyond mere capture of cultural sites. Rolf Sachsse an active German photographer, has written about his art: “Ertuğ is not just an active contemporary of the world cultural heritage – his work has become part of this cultural heritage itself.”
Ahmet Ertuğ lives and works in Istanbul.