This project reconsiders the Ottoman sea baths not as the reconstruction of a lost architectural typology, but through the social, bodily, and urban potentials they once enabled. Historically, sea baths were not merely structures for swimming; they functioned as collective spaces where different bodies came together, where everyday forms of social interaction unfolded, and where a spatial mediation was established between public exposure and privacy. In these structures, the sea was not a distant view, but an environment with which the urban body could directly engage.

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Rather than focusing on why sea baths disappeared, the project examines what they offered to urban life and how these contributions remain relevant today. In contemporary Istanbul, one of the primary barriers to engaging with the sea is water pollution. This project does not attempt to provide a technical solution to this condition. Instead, it challenges the reduction of the sea to the act of swimming, proposing that being by the water, observing it, and sharing time collectively are equally significant modes of engagement.

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Within this framework, the design proposes a mobile sea bath conceived as a spatial device rather than a fixed structure. It can be temporarily positioned at different points along the shoreline, allowing it to move across the city. Its nomadic character detaches the sea bath from a singular site and reintroduces it into circulation within the urban memory. In this sense, the project draws on Aldo Rossi’s Teatro del Mondo, engaging with the idea that architecture can produce collective memory through temporality and displacement.

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Inspired by the multi-layered use of historical sea baths, the design proposes a flexible spatial configuration that accommodates varying degrees of privacy and collective use. As part of the project’s realization, collaboration with local municipalities is anticipated to secure the necessary permissions for public placement. Depending on these processes, the structure is intended to be temporarily installed at multiple coastal locations across Istanbul, where it can be opened to public use and engagement.