Photographing Istanbul’s Charming Painted Signs

Walking through an inner Istanbul neighborhood like Cihangir or Kurtuluş, a passer-by might not immediately pay attention to the hand painted signs on the entries to older apartment buildings. Now, these signs are the subject of a book by photographer and researcher C.M. Kösemen. The Disappearing City: Hand-Painted Apartment Signs and Architectural Details from 20th-Century Istanbul catalogs not just the signs themselves, but the often elegant 20thcentury vernacular architecture of which they formed a part.