Moda Çarşısı

About Moda Çarşısı

Moda Çarşısı is a shopping arcade on İzmir Caddesi in Kızılay, the busy commercial heart of central Ankara. It is one of the many arcade (çarşı) projects that became popular in the area in the 1970s, and it is still a working arcade of small independent shops, a short walk from Kızılay metro station. The complex was designed by the Turkish architects Demirtaş Kamçıl and Rahmi Bediz and built between 1976 and 1980, with Koray İnşaat as contractor. It is often described as more innovative than the office blocks and arcades built nearby in the same period: the office and shopping sections sit in separate blocks, and open-plan corridors and a terrace placed at the centre of the building were intended as places where the people working there could meet. Its most characteristic features are aluminium window frames made with custom moulds, curved aluminium profiles around the windows and terrace railings of thick aluminium strips, which give the building a consistent look; similar window forms can be seen at the same architects' And Çarşısı. Because the site was created by merging several plots across the width of the block, the arcade has entrances on three sides, from İzmir Caddesi, Menekşe Sokak and Sümer Sokak. Today the lower floor houses small shops, among them jewellery and accessory retailers, making it a place to browse between Kızılay's main streets rather than a destination mall.