Even though it has been a short time since our opening, we are still as excited as we were on February 11th! Maison Française, sharing with us the enthusiasm of creating Yirmiyedi Kuzguncuk, is one of our favorite and closely followed publications. We are happy to share with you the article they wrote about us in April.

” New in the neighborhood!

In Kuzguncuk, famous for its colorful wooden houses lined up in rows, we heard from its founder, Ece Melis Döven, the story of the concept store Yirmiyedi Kuzguncuk, which opened its doors last month in a historical building, intertwined with art and design.

On Kuzguncuk Üryanizade Sokak, there is one of the seven buildings built for the accommodation of foreign artisans, architects and ceiling designers who worked during the construction of Beylerbeyi Palace in 1860; with hundreds of stories from the last periods of the Ottoman Empire to the Republican period…

That building now hosts a concept store called Yirmiyedi Kuzguncuk, where every corner smells of art and design. All these stories were embraced with respect and love while the building in which it came to life was restored; just like the geography we live in…

“It is very meaningful for me to meet with this building, which was built 160 years ago for the artists of the period to stay, because my priority has always been art and the artist. After completing my master's degree in Art History and Theory, I was in search of a project that would bring art to the fore in Turkey. At that moment, this building came across me. That's why I think I didn't find the place, but the place found me,” explains the store's founder Ece Melis Döven, explaining the special bond they have with the place.

The most important detail in the design process of Döven was that the originality of the building, where even the water cistern in the cellar is still preserved, should never be touched. In order for the products to create a harmony with the architecture of the building, the interior design was kept as minimal as possible. The lower floor of the building, which consists of three floors, is designed as a store area, and the middle floor is designed as both an office and an exhibition area where the products sold are placed in the living area. The rooftop balcony is positioned for guests to take a sweet break during shopping.

The products, each of which belong to different designers, sold within the body of Yirmiyedi Kuzguncuk are far from the world of fast consumption and mass production; Works that have adopted the principles of slow life, where manual labor and imagination come to the fore in every touch and produced with love. The attention paid to the fact that both the interior decoration and the layout of the store are very simple and each product can be seen individually makes the time spent inside even more enjoyable. Aiming to offer its visitors an experience rather than what a classic store offers, the venue has been designed as a space where designers, artists and guests will enjoy themselves, shop, and have deep conversations about art and design while drinking their coffee.

1. The hard and strong texture of the wood, which dominates the building in general, is made friendly by using an oval language.

2. The chairs of designer Pierre Jeanneret, who lived in the transition period from the XIX. to XX century, are as timeless as the building itself.

3. Yirmiyedi Kuzguncuk is open to the visitors between 11:00 and 18:00 on weekdays for now.

4. Ece Melis Döven is the founder of Yirmiyedi Kuzguncuk.”

Many thanks to Maison Française.