Hulda’s story
Hulda, which was built in 1905 as a Baltic merchant ship in Sweden’s Sjotorps shipyard, started its second life in 1965 in the hands of its new owner, İlhan Koman, an extraordinary artist, after carrying goods to neighboring countries for more than half a century. Only Koman’s works live on now, but his 119-year-old cultural heritage continues to float on the seas.
Hulda is the name of a 26m- eter-long, 6.7-meter- wide, 185-ton sea tiger. It was completely restored by İlhan Koman after harsh working conditions in the Baltic Sea, and it became a home and workshop for the artist during his lifetime. When it was anchored at the Drottningholm Royal Port in Stockholm, it hosted a master who tried to transcend his time, and its name has always been associated with its owner. Today, the only reason why this historical artifact fascinates everyone who stumbles upon it is not just because it is an imposing wooden sailboat. Sometimes boats are also famous for the stories of their owners.
It is named after a goddess from pagan Norse mythology and the queen of the Elves. It can be described as a double-masted grandmother, built of oak and pine. It was fitted with an engine in the 1940s and carried freight until 1965.
The owner who rescued it from this difficult business life is an artist who studied under the famous German sculptor Prof. Rudolph Belling at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts, graduated at the top of his class, and, with the scholarship he won, worked at L’Académie Julian and L’École du Louvre in Paris between 1947 and 1951, where he had his first solo exhibition. His reliefs at Anıtkabir and the famous Mediterranean sculpture are the most prominent among his works in Türkiye.
A proposal he received during the years when he joined André Bloc’s Groupe Espace manifesto, which advocated creating new environments for society by combining architecture and art, was a turning point in İlhan Koman’s life cycle. After World War II, an EXPO was organized again, and Brussels was chosen as the host city. The EXPO, organized in 1958 with the slogan “Giving back humanity to the world,” is still remembered today with the Atomium construction, the symbol of the city. The design of the Turkish Pavilion at that fair was commissioned by four brilliant young architects of the time, and İlhan Koman was asked to produce a work for this pavilion. Building a thirty-meter tower made of steel pipes at the entrance of the pavilion, Koman not only combined architecture and art, but also incorporated mathematics and physics. In addition to this moving tower based on static calculations, the artist also built a large Hittite Sun inside the pavilion, and this was how the artist opened up to the world. The products of his six months in Brussels took him to Sweden, where he found an environment that allowed him to work comfortably for the next few years.
His first home in Sweden was a barn-like shelter with one wall that collapsed. After recreating his home by fixing all the deficiencies of the place, he decided to return to his country when the landlord raised the rent many times over. Just then, his and Hulda’s eyes met. He had such a lifestyle that he could untie the ropes and go to sea whenever he felt like it came to his mind, and this time, he took Hulda in hand. He spent a year and a half working on Hulda, which he towed to the shipyard where it was built in Sjötorp, and created a complete living space from the heating system to the electrical system, from the telephone to the piano. The boat’s hold became the saloon, and a large table was set for meals. His wife Kerstin’s daughter, and their four children slept in bunk beds and spent summers in the Scandinavian fjords. In his atelier, which he set up in the harbor where the boat was moored, he was creating unique works combining science and art, while also making inventions for which he received patents.
İlhan Koman passed away in 1986, when he still had a lot of work to finish. As per his will, his ashes were scattered in the Baltic Sea, and Hulda was left an orphan. Hulda, which he entrusted to his young son Korhan Koman in the days of his illness, was restored to its original state in 1995, and the task of keeping it alive was handed over to his brother Ahmet Koman. Hulda, which was brought to Türkiye in 2010 as part of the European Union’s 7th Framework Program, has been staying in Bodrum Harbor after sailing in different waters. There is a possibility that it will soon become a museum ship. Maybe its 120th birthday will be auspicious.