Doctoral Candidate Bahar Akgün

Bahar Akgün-Ergeçen holds dual bachelor’s degrees in Architecture and Civil Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, where she also earned a master’s degree in Design Computing. Currently, she is pursuing a Ph.D. in the Islamic Studies Department within the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, as a member of the Heidelberg Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HGGS). Her Ph.D. project, funded by a DAAD-GSSP scholarship, seeks to empirically investigate the aesthetic principles shaping the production and reception of the girih mode of Islamic geometric ornament. This interdisciplinary research, encompassing empirical aesthetics, art history, philosophy, and architectural design, is being conducted under the co-supervision of Prof. Dr. Rebecca Sauer (Islamic Studies & Material Culture Studies, University of Zurich), Dr. Rebecca Chamberlain (Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London), and Prof. Dr. Brigitte Sölch (Architectural and Modern Art History, University of Heidelberg).

Bahar participated in Prof. Dr. Mine Özkar Kabakçıoğlu’s research project, “A Computational Analysis of the Design Processes Behind Two-dimensional Seljuk Geometric Patterns in Anatolia,” as a bursar. This experience culminated in her master’s thesis, “Seeing and Learning from Familiar Shapes of a Seljuk Pattern,” at Istanbul Technical University. She conducted a research stay at the Laboratory for Cognitive Research in Art History (CReA) at the University of Vienna, where she initiated an eye-tracking study under the supervision of Dr. Hanna Brinkmann. Currently, she is undertaking another research stay as part of her Ph.D. research at the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her most recent publication, co-authored with Lara Mehling, is a book chapter entitled, “‘Ornamentale Betrachtung‘: Das Gazebo als optisches Gerät” in Forschungsmethoden Landschaftsarchitekturtheorie (Springer, forthcoming).