AA School of Architecture 2014

A selection of work recently declassified by the MiT, the National Intelligence Organisation of Turkey. For years the MiT have monitored the activities and speculated about the ultimate intention of the Melevi Order.

Abolished in 1925 by the vision of a new Turkish Republic, the largely spiritual Mevlevi Order no longer held a place in President Atatürk's inspired Turkey. In 1953, the community was granted partial rights – a period of two weeks per year - to practice their traditional Whirling Ceremony - but only for the amusement of tourists, who, much like the imposing government, considered it a performance as opposed to genuine religious practice.

Since then, the MiT has received intelligence that the Mevlevi Order have been abusing the site generously allocated to them by the government for the construction of a Süleymaniye Tourist Centre. The suspicion is that Mevlevi practitioners continue to use the site outside the designation Whirling hours for tourists, and that through the addition of hidden cells, passages and rooms, a dangerous Mevlevi community capable of mass anti-government sentiment is slowly evolving within.