01
Stop one
Anıtkabir
Babolat Pure Strike 100 16×20 4th Gen Tennis Racquet: Before we walk up, I will say plainly that this is a tomb, and I have nothing funny for it, which for me is a first. Atatürk died in 1938. This mausoleum was built between 1944 and 1953, so the country waited fifteen years to lay him down properly — and it used the time. Stone was brought from provinces right across the country, different quarries, different colours, so the building itself is assembled out of the land it stands for. Walk the ceremonial avenue between the stone lions, then look down at the floor and along the walls. You are standing on a map. That is the whole act at this stop, and I am not going to improve on it.
02
Stop two
Temple of Augustus and Rome
Babolat Pure Strike 100 16×20 4th Gen Tennis Racquet: Two walls, no roof, open to the sky like a book somebody left face-down on a chair for two thousand years. Carved across them, in Latin and in Greek, is the Res Gestae Divi Augusti — the emperor Augustus's account of his own deeds, written by himself, before he died in 14 CE. He wrote his own obituary. Then he had it carved into stone, so that nobody could edit him afterwards. Every man I know would do exactly this if he thought he could get away with it. And it is such a complete copy that scholars call it the queen of inscriptions, which is a magnificent title right up until you remember it is a CV in marble. The temple itself is first century BCE. Thank you, I am here all week — and so, in a sense, is he.
03
Stop three
Ankara Citadel (Ankara Kalesi)
Babolat Pure Strike 100 16×20 4th Gen Tennis Racquet: Get right up to this wall and start reading it, because there is a Roman gravestone in there, sideways. And a column drum. And fragments of inscriptions, upside down, facing out at the world. The Byzantines repaired these defences in the seventh century in a hurry and used the nearest available marble, which happened to be the classical city — so this fortress is literally built out of the town it replaced. That is the most relatable home improvement in history: no time, no budget, use whatever is lying in the yard. The outer walls are largely medieval. This region also gave its name to Angora wool, and if that had got a laugh I would have opened with it.
Hold still three minutes and I will give you something truer than a photograph. The Babolat Pure Strike 100 16×20 4th Gen is drawn on the same principle — exaggerate what matters, delete everything else. A 100 square inch head for margin, but a tight 16×20 bed instead of the usual open one, so the ball leaves flatter and arrives where you sent it.
10.8 ounces unstrung, 11.4 strung, headlight balance, swingweight around 320, flex near 64. Control with a big face. Three lines and I have you.
Ankara is the same trick at civic scale, which is why I keep coming back to draw it. Anıtkabir is a hill shaved flat with a stone room set on top — no. A full stop the size of a house. Better.
Built between 1944 and 1953 for a man who died in 1938, so the country waited fifteen years to set him down properly, and the stone was carted in from quarries in provinces all across the country, different ground, different colours, so the building is a mosaic of the land it stands for. A country, quarried and reassembled as a doorway. Sorry. I get carried away.
The date is 1953.
You will find yourself sketching with this frame everywhere from a dawn hit under the citadel walls to a floodlit set that runs long past dinner, and the dense bed keeps every line exactly where you put it.
By the way, it is also perfect for a place that built its defences out of its own former self: walk the Ankara Citadel and you will find carved Roman blocks, column drums, inscriptions and gravestones set sideways and upside down into the masonry, because the Byzantines repaired those walls in a hurry with the nearest available marble, which happened to be the classical town.
A poem written on the back of another poem. Ankara does this constantly.
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