For Tolga Berkay, design is not merely a problem-solving practice, but one of the oldest and most powerful expressions of humanity’s relationship with the world. Since the beginning of human existence, people have designed, shaped, and assigned meaning to their surroundings. Design, therefore, is a timeless cultural act — the transformation of thought into matter, and memory into form.

 

Berkay’s philosophy is grounded in the belief that inspiring contemporary spaces are not only places we inhabit, but mental and emotional landscapes that shape who we are. Space, form, and object exist in continuous dialogue with the body, memory, and intuition. Design carries the responsibility of making this dialogue conscious, balanced, and meaningful.

 

As both a ceramic artist and an industrial designer, Berkay rejects rigid boundaries between disciplines. In his practice, art, design, and craftsmanship converge along the same conceptual axis. Sculptural thinking, functional intelligence, and historical awareness operate as inseparable layers of creation. Form is never a purely aesthetic outcome; it is the visible state of thought.

 

Anatolian civilizations — particularly Hittite and Trojan cultures — are not archaeological references in Berkay’s work, but living cultural codes. Ancient symbols and archetypal forms are not revisited through nostalgia; they are reinterpreted through a contemporary language, allowing the past to remain active within the present. For Berkay, history is not a fixed reference, but a continuously re-read field of memory.

 

Design, in Berkay’s view, extends beyond a technical balance between aesthetics and function; it is an ethical responsibility. Space, object, and user are considered as parts of an integrated whole. Every carefully constructed form must address both physical use and intellectual experience with equal sensitivity.

 

Cultural and disciplinary differences are not divisive in Berkay’s approach, but generative. Ethnic, historical, and geographical diversity is treated not as a source of conflict, but as a mosaic of form, texture, and thought. Design becomes the art of transforming this mosaic into a coherent and meaningful unity.

 

Tolga Berkay’s artistic and design practice asserts that tradition is not a static inheritance, but a living structure in constant dialogue with innovation. For him, design is both a cultural conversation and a timeless creative act — an ongoing practice of thinking through form, space, and time.