ABSTRACT
Le Corbusier wrote the words above in his travel diary in Istanbul, during his now well-acclaimed Voyage d'Orient. Filling some six sketchbooks with hundreds of drawings and anecdotes, Le Corbusier published his travel diaries 50 years later as a book. The documents that disclose the facts about Eldem's journey testify that his Turkish house style', as it came to be known over the years, was the result of a translation process that took place in part during this travel in Europe. The travel diary is full of factual mistakes: as a rule Turks do not eat meat. Eldem's lifetime project was to find a place for these vernacular houses within the changing times an urge that can already be observed in his travel diaries. Let us illustrate this with an analysis of Eldem's travel diaries. Eldem's approach to Wright was in fact no different than his reception of many other architects associated with modernism.
