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His life story ÇELİK GÜLERSOY He was born on 23rd September, 1930, in Hakkari in the east of Turkey, where his father, a Turkish Gendarme commander, was doing his national service. His father, Senior Captain Akif Müftüoğlu was originally from Istanbul and later moved to Ünye. His surname indicates that he was from a family that had produced many kadis (moslem judges) and muftis. His mother, Münevver was from Erzurum. The family arrived in Istanbul in 1933 during the cebrations marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic. They lived close to Kariye Mosque for a year and moved to Yıldız in 1934. Çelik Gülersoy completed his primary, secondary and high school education in Istanbul. He graduated from Beyoğlu Erkek High School with the highest grade and from Istanbul University Law Faculty with a good degree. He did his national service between 1959 and 1960. He worked at different levels in Turkey’s Touring and Automobile Association, which he joined while he was still a student. He was promoted to be Law Consultant to the Association in 1961 and became General Manager in 1966. He reorganized the Association and brought in many much-needed services. He contributed to tourism and attended traffic conferences and congresses abroad. He published the first Turkish treatises on these issues which had been based on foreign scientific research. He was elected as a member of the International Scientific Tourism Experts Association (AIEST) and also to the International Tourism Academy in Monaco, whose membership is limited to a very few highly esteemed people. In recognition of his work in tourism and culture, the Ministry of Culture awarded him the “Plaque of Honour” in 1979 and “The Grand Culture and Art Award” in 2000. He had, previously, been invested as “Cavaliere” by the President of Italy in 1976 and was decorated with “The National Medal of Appreciation” by the President of France in 1980. His work, “The Story of the Covered Bazaar” (Kapalı Çarşının Romanı) received the Simavi Foundation Social Sciences Prize in 1979. He was granted honorary doctorates by Bosphorus University, the Black Sea Technical University and the Anatolian University. He published many works on the history of Istanbul over a thirty-year period. In 1970, he began a series of illustrated publications of engravings and paintings to record the physiognomic changes in the city districts through the centuries and to recount their history. As a second series, he enriched Turkish literature by translating books about Turkey written in western languages, for the first time. These were prefaced by biographies of their authors. A third series concerned studies of previously overlooked city districts, thereto unheralded in literature, and which related the history of significant, individual buildings therein. In this series, the first studies of the Covered Bazaar (Kapalı Çarşı), Dolmabahçe and Çırağan Palaces, Göksu riverside promenade, Sultanahmet Mosque and the Khedive’s Summer Mansion were published. From 1979 onwards, he implemented an environmentally-protective policy to preserve the historical groves of Istanbul. He extended this policy to the restoration of the pavilions and mansions within the groves, as well as in the rebuilding of historical streets in Sultanahmet, Edirnekapı and Safranbolu. He pioneered the preservation of the historic buildings in these areas and the conversion of many of them into hotels and tea houses, all of which were, thereafter, opened to the public. In this way, he earned the acclaim of an ever-widening circle of admirers and, also, supplied excellent, environmental models that won both local and international awards.
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