Most residents would jump for joy if a parking lot and a hideous office building at the historical heart of their city were slated to be replaced by a cultural center designed by a celebrated architect. They would be even happier if private donors had agreed to pick up the tab to the tune of some $150 million, sparing the pocketbooks of the city's taxpayers. Alas, this is not so in Istanbul.

In 2008, the metropolitan municipality of Istanbul (IBB) approved a project to build a theater and a concert hall designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry, but soon thereafter reversed its decision. No one knows why. Some of Gehry’s plans survive in press reports and on the IBB's website, but the project had otherwise disappeared from the public eye.

The cultural complex, consisting of two separate buildings, was to have been built in central Beyoglu, the international neighborhood that in fin-de-siècle Istanbul was called Pera, replacing a car park and a steel and glass structure outrageously painted red, blue and green — the very unharmonious colors of TRT, Turkish state radio and television, whose offices it houses. Adding insult to injury, this hideous example of brutalist architecture obstructs the view toward the Golden Horn.

Not forgotten by everyone, Gehry's plans have been dusted off and re-presented in “Looking from In-Between: A Section of Mesrutiyet Street,” the current exhibition at the Istanbul Research Institute. The exhibition is largely devoted to the history of two buildings some 100 meters apart and overlooking the thoroughfare that in Ottoman times was called rue des Petis-Champs. The last section of the show looks at the history of the plot of land across from the buildings, which is where Gehry's buildings would have stood.