Tyler Art History PhD candidate Ryan Mitchell is the 2024 Philadelphia Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians George B. Tatum Fellow. He will discuss architectural designs and the use of neo-classicism in Istanbul’s late Ottoman schools as part of global patterns of taste and explore questions of identity.

Focusing on schools constructed in Istanbul and Athens between 1868 and 1900, his research offers a comparative study of the Greek (also known as Rum) educational institutions, analyzing the various strategies of self-representation at play in their architectural programs.

He compares the shared stylistic language of eclectic classicism that appear in the Zografyon Lyceum (1890) and the Zappeio School for Girls (1885) in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district, as well as related structures within the Ottoman lands and in the then nascent Kingdom of Greece.

This event is being co-sponsored by the Art History Department and the Philadelphia Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, who awarded Mitchell with the 2024 George B. Tatum Fellowship.