Academic, artistic and cultural :: Constructive imaginings of the discordant . Making heritage of urban movements . Hajde
The Garden of (not) Forgetting :: Reflection . Nevşünema . Memory of a place, topography of destruction . Many places on the trail of a place . Mehpare's herbarium . Whispers' garden .
Last year's herbarium . Last year's catalogue . The pool . Seeds from the Earth . Remembering exercises . A sequence from a garden; whispers, seeds, traces
Spatial design :: Winter Garden . Visiting Scholars and Guest Artist Offices . Reading Room . Imaginable Guidelines
Plankton Project :: durak Ovacık . gölge Seferihisar
Visual design :: The Garden of (not) Forgetting . Hajde . Aidiyet [production] . Aidiyet [visual]
Study experience :: Sound Topography . Observers' Route . Loafer Cinema . All that is Solid . Summer Homes: Claiming the Coast.
Constructive imaginings of the discordant:
Architectural research exhibitions on modernist architecture in Turkey in the 2010s
type Research, Presentation
role researcher
supervised by
Jun. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Daniela Zupan, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yıldız Salman, Istanbul Technical University
Master Thesis
Bauhaus University of Weimar
Institute for European Urbanism
Leipzig, 2021-2022
Modernist architecture is currently at significant risk of destruction in Turkey. Especially since the 2010s, modernist buildings were neglected and ruined as a result of the Neo-Ottoman ideals shaping the dominant heritage policy of the current government under the influence of Islamism. Modernist architecture bears traces of the Kemalist ideals that shape the Republic of Turkey under the influence of Secularism after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. This dissertation argues that the current situation of modernist architecture reflects the dichotomy between Islamist and Kemalist groups in Turkey in regard to the ideals that modernist architecture represents. The historical overview of this dissertation outlines the development of the controversial situation of modernist architecture in Turkey in the last century by illustrating its connection with the aforementioned dichotomy.
The destructive official narratives influenced by the dichotomy on modernist architecture endanger the possibility of negotiations for its preservation. However, this dissertation examines the affirmative aspects of the dissonant heritage, such as inherent plurality and constructive imaginations of disagreements via narratives. In this biased case, the study analyzes the possibility of pluralist narratives that focus on modernist architecture from both critical and preservative perspectives. Through the analysis in which problem-centred interviews with the researchers and curators of the selected exhibitions are conducted, the dissertation examines the narratives of the architectural research exhibitions about modernist architecture produced in Turkey in the 2010s.
The interview analysis starts with critical interpretations of heritage and reveals the exhibition narrative’s intention towards introducing the architectural value of modernist buildings. Moreover, the study demonstrates the strategies and methods for maintaining plurality and constructiveness in the narrative production on a discordant topic. Adding to these, the study also presents a discussion about the impact of these narratives on the ongoing controversial situation of modernist architecture in Turkey and various suggestions by the interviewees for the future of modernist architecture. Lastly, this work aims to contribute to architecture historiography by interviewing the prominent figures from Turkey's architecture culture, who are experienced in the controversy of modernist architecture in Turkey.
