Ahmed Kemaleddin (Ottoman Turkish: احمد كمال الدين; 1870 – 13 July 1927), widely known as Mimar Kemaleddin (Architect Kemaleddin) was a Turkish architect, and one of the leading figures of the First National architectural movement, alongside Vedat Tek.
Ahmed Kemaleddin was born in 1870 to a middle-class Ottoman family in the Acıbadem neighborhood of Istanbul. His father was Miralay Ali Bey, a naval captain, and his mother was Sadberk Hanım. In 1875, he began with his primary education at the İbrahim Ağa Primary School. He continued his secondary education in 1881 in Crete, then part of the Ottoman Empire, due to his father's assignment. Returning soon after to Istanbul, he graduated from high school.
In 1887, at the age of 17, he enrolled in the School of Civil Engineering (Ottoman Turkish: Hendese-i Mülkiye Mektebi, now Istanbul Technical University). Kemaleddin graduated as an engineer with honours in 1891. He then remained at his alma mater and worked as an assistant for four years. During this period, he created his own works in his office he had opened outside the university.
In 1895, promoted by his scholar German architect August Jachmund, designer of the Sirkeci Railway Terminal in Istanbul, and supported by a state scholarship, he went to Germany, where he was educated two years in architecture at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg in Berlin. Afterwards, he worked 2+1⁄2 years in various architecture offices gaining professional experience.
In 1900, Ahmed Kemaleddin returned home and resumed work at the university. Following the departure of August Jachmund, he assumed his post as lecturer. In 1908, he played a pioneering role in the formation of the first vocational organization for engineers and architects in the Ottoman Empire, the "Society of Ottoman Architects and Engineers".
Whilst still a student at the Hendese-i Mulkıye (State School of Engineering) where he commenced his studies in 1887 he received the Medal for Industry. He must have been hardworking and creative. These personal attributes may have been related to his greater interest in the lessons of Prof. Jasmund on architecture than in engineering and to the fact that Prof. Jasmund chose him as his assistant.
Kemaleddin showed himself to be a designer open to learning and experimentation and is also a portrayal of a self-reliant architect.
However great an influence Jasmund and the German connections are on his perception of design, the wide scope of his references is also important. The Art Nouveau of Ratip Pasha Mansion, a building of the early era, or the connection of Harikzedegan Apartments with French public housing, the Orientalist flavour in the design of the Evkaf-ı Humayun Nezareti (Ministry of Imperial Foundations), the eclectic style of the 3rd Foundation Han or the Empire line of the Husnu Pasha Tomb cannot be ignored.
A Kemaleddin work doubtless presents an image overflowing with ideological connections. Only here his creativity also feeds his ideology. The transformation of his ideology into a school of architecture is essentially down to his creative talent and self-confidence, if also fed by his industriousness and organisational expertise or teaching skill/teaching discipline.
His life was already over when he ascertained the eventuality of this confidence being shaken.
His architecture was a tale that prevented the hero from experiencing a tragic end, from an untimely death.
On 27 Rebi-ül ahir 1327/18 May 1909, he was appointed head of architecture at the Imperial Ministry of Foundations.
The possibility of designing and bringing to fruition new building projects is an irresistible passion for an architect, but running maintenance and restoration works on historical buildings, the basic and traditional function of the Ministry, was also a very special learning opportunity. Kemaleddin took the intelligent approach of evaluating the two fields together and allowing each to foster the other. Restoration was an opportunity for productivity in which he drew on and applied information that was the source for the experimentation that differentiates architectural language.
Whilst perceiving restoration as a method of interpreting traditional architecture and making the linguistic infrastructure for its renewal, he attempted to manage and give direction to a field whose principles were as yet not clearly defined.
He knew that restoration was not an ordinary repairs job. He taught it.
He pioneered in the field by restoring a great number of Ottoman monumental structures employing for the first time a scientific approach.
He restored the Yeni Cami Hunkar Gathering Place with passionate enthusiasm. But his principal performance was certainly the Mescid-i Aksa and Harem-i Serif project. The skill he demonstrated in the restoration of the Mescid-i Aksa won him international acclaim and an award from the Royal Institute of British Architects.
On graduation from the Hendese-i Mülkiye he was appointed to the teaching staff of Technology and Architecture at the same school and as Prof. Jasmund's assistant. On his return from Germany where he went to gain knowledge and experience he took up his post at the Hendese-i Mulkiye again. And from that point on he continued to teach. He educated hundreds of students at Sanayi-i Nefise Mekteb-i Alisi (the Academy of Fine Arts), Konduktor Mekteb-i Alisi (the Conductor School) and Muhendis Mekteb-i Alis (the Academy of Engineering).