Turkish roofs are top(p)s 

When one plans a new house great attention is paid to the plans, bedrooms and bathrooms, kitchens and verandas all laid out in meticulous detail. What about the roof? One might consider the shape but what about the colour? For all those living in Turkey we now have options well beyond the traditional choices of clay and earth tones. The Başak group of companies have have spent three years and over two million dollars in the creation of brightly coloured roof tiles. The investment is no mere whim, Turkey’s construction sector is it’s third largest part of the economy employing around one and a half million people and accounting for eight percent of gross national product. Eighty per cent of building material is locally produced including cement, building steel, timber, bricks, PVC, polyethylene, glass, ceramic tiles, and sanitary ware.However the last year has seen a downturn in the building industry with companies unwilling to take the risk of financing new projects using credit. The result has been a slowdown for companies who build and supply the building trade.

Companies who want to stay ahead of the competition have to plan ahead and Başak did exactly that. Knowing that residential constructions make up sixty percent of all new buildings and earthquake regulations imposed since 1999 mean that apartment buildings are often shorter than past projects (and there is an increased preference for houses) they predicted and invested in the idea that roofs would become both more important and more visible. The development of the coloured tile puts them in a leading position not just in Turkey but also internationally. Firuz Karık, head of Başak’s management committee, explains; ‘We have had enquiries from all over the world and exported our products to America, Azerbaijan, Jordan, the Congo, Russia and Holland. One of our best references is that we worked on the Palm Island project in Dubai.’

Başak have a multi pronged marketing scheme for their new product. General manager of the Başak group, Erkan Pekdemir, explains what drove them down the rainbow route; ‘The appearance of buildings has recently started to come to the forefront of people’s minds. People want their building to be different. They want people to know that they’ve spent money on their walls, their doors and their roofs and coloured tiles are more expensive than normal tiles.’ Başak emphasise the aesthetic difference that coloured tiles can make to a house and reinforce that idea with an appeal to the snob factor; ‘Houses with roofs that are in two colours will have an element of prestige added. These coloured tiles cost twice as much as ordinary tiles and when compared with those ordinary tiles they are more aesthetic, different, artisitic even sporty.’ says Karık.

And in fact sporty is the other strand of their marketing, Başak are keen to see their coloured clayware being purchased by football fans. Firuz Karık dreams of the day when; ‘You will be able to look down on Turkey using Google Earth and see who supports which team by the colour of their roof.’ Eskişehir Spor football team have been the first to take up the opportunity and when they were recently promoted to Division One the ‘Red Lightning’ team had a new red roof on their stadium to celebrate. İt’s not just red that’s available though, Galatasaray fans can have yellow and red, Fenerbahçe blue and canary yellow and Beşiktaş devotees black and white. For those less partisan and more patriotic Başak are offering red and white roof tiles.

It will never happen you might think – but you’d be wrong. Decorating your whole house to match your teams colours happens all over Turkey with the most dedicated fans being Fenerbahçe's. Aladdin Şen the headman of Bozkandak village, a small place of six hundred and eighty souls painted his house bright blue and yellow in 2006 and has promised that if Fenerbahçe win three cahmpionships he will paint the streets of the village too. Super Fener fan fifty seven year old Hayrettin Pişkin is famous for painting not just the exterior of his Akşehir house blue and yellow but the entire interior too, down to his kitchen shelves. The Demirtaş family in Adapazarı have taken things one step further than just painting their apartment building, they won’t accept tenants who support any team other than Fenerbahçe and Mrs. Demirtaş insists that whoever her son brings home as a bride to be also needs to be a supporter. A combination of this crazy fanaticism, a growth in mortgage loans for property and home improvements and a love of showing off probably mean that Başak have hit the nail on the head and have as the Dutch say ‘tiled their roof with tarts’ (to do well).