Destruction by hands of the Government

Intentional loss of a selected history

The Turkish Republic was established on the 29^th of October 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. This also marked the detachment from the Ottoman Empire and the foundation of a new country aimed at modern and Westernized institutions and society. In doing so, modernism’s journey started in Turkey. All the reforms¹ were part of a modernist project to create a modern secular nation-state.

In the field of architecture, which is the physical evidence of political developments, the rulers of the country aimed to erect grandiose modern buildings that could represent the modern and secular face of the new state. This followed the adoption of the modernist architectural language to Turkey with a nationalist agenda (Bozdoğan & Akcan, 2012; Kezer, 2015). In the meantime, Ankara, chosen as the capital during the Independence War, was declared the Turkish Republic's new capital in 1924. Besides symbolizing the detachment from the Ottoman past, even though Ankara was a rural, underdeveloped city, it was the optimum solution as providing a safe tabula-rasa on which modern architecture could operate freely.

Between 1923 and the 1960s, Turkey, particularly Ankara, witnessed different approaches in modern architecture in relation to the political developments and evolving understanding of architecture related to nationalism. Recently, especially with the foundation of the political party in charge today, the Justice and Development Party, the approach to these modern heritage examples gained a negative attitude as they represent a history they do not prefer to be a part of. Or in different conditions, they are not favored and tried not to be conserved. This attitude has resulted in a destruction movement against this heritage and still continues today.

In this paper, the history of modern architecture in Turkey will be covered, and remarkable attitudes will be explained. This will give way to evaluate the value of such modern heritage examples in the scope of Turkish architectural history. Following that, the changing attitude towards modern architecture and modern heritage will be explained through the destruction movement in this period, specifically in Ankara, and the preferred architectural language will be put forth. This way, a comprehensive evaluation of the relationship between the attitude toward modern heritage and current political power will be realized.

Following the defeat in World War I, Ottoman land, including the capital city of İstanbul, was occupied by Entente states. When Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his friends decided to resist this occupation and start the War of Independence, they chose Ankara as the center of the War between 1919 and 1922. After the victory in the War, Ankara was declared the capital city of the New Republic. This change in the capital city could be evaluated as a significant attempt by the founders when the rooted history and the importance of İstanbul for Muslim society were considered. (There is a general belief in the Muslim community on the existence of a hadith saying that "Verily you shall conquer Constantinople, İstanbul). What a wonderful leader will her leader be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!". Batuman explains the place of this move by saying, 

The foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 was a radical attempt to construct a secular nation-state with a modern national identity within an Islamic society. Accordingly, all the symbols of Islamic tradition – particularly the old Ottoman capital of İstanbul – were renounced². 

Ankara, a more sheltered place, against an occupied İstanbul and an administration trying to come to terms with the invaders. Besides, Istanbul was seen as the site of extreme Westernization, corruption, and potentially dangerous forces against the regime, including Islam. As shortly described by Ahıska, “Nationalist ideas and practices would be written on Ankara, which was seen as a blank slate³”.

In the end, with the construction of the new capital of Ankara, New Republicans aimed to show, and in a way exhibit, the ideology of the modern Turkish nation. Besides the location of the city at the center of Anatolia, its proximity to some prominent cities, and being in the junction of essential railway routes, one of the main reasons for the choice of Ankara as the capital of the New Republic is put forth very basically by Zeynep Kezer: “Ankara's insignificant past has allowed Republican modernizers to perceive and describe it as a tabula rasa on which to put their big dreams into practice⁴”. It must be stated that this decision was criticized at many different political levels due to the existing condition of Ankara as a city in terms of its capacity to meet the requirements of a capital city. For instance, England announced that they would not condemn an “ambassador-level diplomat to live in a mountain village in the middle of Anatolia”; and, further than that, they lobbied very intensely to convince their allies in the First World War so that not only its own embassy but also other countries' embassies should not be moved to Ankara⁵. However, in the end, the decision was solid, and the New Republic started to flourish in the new capital, Ankara. 

The following sections focus on the architectural history of Turkey after the declaration of the Republic and the introduction and development of modern architecture in this land. As a part of this process, and following that, the changing attitude towards modern architecture and modern heritage is discussed as the main objective of the paper. In relation, the dense destruction movement, seen explicitly in Ankara, is explained with cases – significant in terms of their typology, architectural value, commemorative value, social value, representativeness, and so on -, and, in replace to modern architecture, the architectural language preferred by the rulers is put forth which gives way to a comprehensive evaluation of the relationship between the attitude toward modern heritage and current political power.

The constitution of the new capital city can be discussed and evaluated in two phases. In the first phase, there was still an engagement with the traditional values, and no apparent and distinct detachment from the past could be observed. This is why the process was conducted under the dominancy and mentality that continued the Ottoman understanding of modernization. On the other hand, the starting point and the main focus of the second phase was the discharge of such knowledge and approach.

Architecture between 1923-1930_Not that modern

The architectural style of the first construction process in Ankara was called 'Ottoman Revivalism,' which can be defined as "the adoption of traditional Ottoman forms of religious buildings to symbolize a national character⁶"; and is called "the first modern discourse in Turkish architectural culture⁷". The practices of this style were mainly applied by Turkish architects and lasted until the end of the 1920s. Between 1923 and 1928, Ankara witnessed a dense construction process of new buildings and the formation of wide boulevards. The emergence of new, monumental buildings, newspapers, magazines, postcards, etc., became the medium for presenting the New Republic. Also, they served to develop a ‘national identity and spirit.’ However, the image formed with this architectural style contradicted the aim of 'detaching from the Ottoman past' and the modernist ideology because the Ottoman Revivalist language referred to the Ottoman-Islamic past with the forms and elements (fig. 1). This reference to the past and traditional relations through architecture was incompatible with the 'modernity' ideal of the Republicans in every field. Besides, within itself, the way of the implementation of the style was criticized as: 

The idea of "dressing up" modern building types, modern materials, and modern construction techniques in ornate historical "envelopes" – the basic idea behind nineteenth-century revivalism everywhere – was criticized as "untruthful" and "deceptive" from the vantage point of a modern ethic.

It was also evaluated as a violation of functionalist and rationalist principles of modernism that required a programmatic differentiation of façade design⁸.

Architecture in 1930s_Modern Architecture

As a solution to this contradiction, European ‘modern’ architecture was “imported” due to its language without any traditional cultural codes and, at the same time, the representative of modernity desired by the governors. The introduction of ‘modern architecture’ was closely related to the Turkish government's invitation of European (mostly German) architects and urbanists to work as teachers, consultants, and designers⁹, right after the declaration of Ankara as the new capital city, initiatives for a city plan were begun, and the first plan of the city was prepared by the German planner Dr. Carl Cristoph Lörcher in 1924, which included the significant decisions of the following planning studies also: two parts as old city and Yenişehir (fig. 2)¹⁰. After that, with the decision to give a modern image for the town, in 1927, an international competition was organized for the new Ankara master plan; and Berlin-based architect Hermann Jansen's plan, based on the ideas of the Garden City Movement, the predominant movement in Europe in that period, won the competition (Deriu 2013, 500) (fig. 3).

The Garden City model, a milestone in the planning paradigm of the twentieth century, aims to improve the unhealthy living conditions and working conditions in industrial cities by positioning the different functions, such as work and residential areas, in different places – zones – of the city to reduce the tension between rural and urban areas and to increase the recreation and transportation infrastructure. Consequently, Jansen separated the city into zones according to their functions and presented a scheme that constituted the open space relation between the parts through freiflächen (free surfaces) in the draft plan dated 1927¹¹.

Architects Clemenez Holzmeister, Paul Bonatz, Bruno Taut, and Ernst A. Egli, architects and urbanists invited by the government, can be stated as the prominent figures responsible for the design of critical buildings forming the cityscape, which are mostly governmental and/or public buildings¹². At this point, it is essential to emphasize the motivation and will of the Republicans in a holistic modernization of Turkey with its citizens. Modernism was seen as a project that would primarily encompass all social areas and focus on internal and external values. The program for revolutions had to address every aspect of public and private life and transform them in line with the intended goal, and, at the same time, it meant a definite break with the past - the Ottoman past. In 1926, the dress code in the Ottoman Empire was abandoned, the Alphabet Revolution was made, and the Latin alphabet was started to be used. A legal structure was created based on Swiss civil, Italian criminal, and German commercial laws. Together with that, women’s rights and the role of women in society took an important place in the reform movements: Polygamy was banned, and women were given the right to vote and be elected. Turkish women gained the freedom to pursue a career¹³.

The architecture was the visual expression of this modernization project as it would prepare the necessary environment for modern society and republican authority. It should symbolize the progressive community and possession of technology. The chosen architectural style, Western architecture (despite its apparent simplicity), had content that was too complex to be easily copied by Turkish architects. Therefore, there was a need for experts to be brought from abroad¹⁴.

One of the leading representatives of this period was Sergi Evi (Exhibition House) due to being a competition project demanded to be ‘designed in modern style’¹⁵ (fig. 4). The competition was held in 1933, and the winner was Şevki Balmumcu – a young Turkish architect who was another significant aspect of the building -. Another remarkable example is İller Bankası (Provincial Bank), with its pure geometry, which was also acquired with an architectural competition. The building became the symbol of modern heritage conservation activities due to its illegal and show-like destruction process (fig. 5).

Architecture in 1940s_Revival of National Sentiments in Architecture

In the 1940s, a new architectural trend began in Turkey after a decade-long, vigorous, contemporary modernist period that kept pace with the positive developments in world architecture. The movement was fed by the effect of fascism in Italy, the national socialism in Germany, totalitarian thoughts, and the effort to return to the origin, which emerged as a reaction to the domination of foreign architects that has been going on since 1927. This is a turnaround and giving up the original and progressive architectural language created in parallel with Atatürk's revolutions in the 1930s¹⁶. In the works called National Architectural Seminar, founded and directed by Sedad Hakkı Eldem in 1936 within the Academy of Fine Arts, researchers focused on Turkish civil architecture formed the basis of thought of this movement. Here, the aim was to create an architecture unique to Turkey by utilizing local architecture and contemporary technology. This aim is well-described by Eldem himself, by saying: 

In today’s architecture, the trend is toward nationalism rather than internationalism. Although the same new constructional concepts and elements are adopted by many different nations, when it comes to ideals, they all look for ways of maintaining, developing, and expressing their identities. Modern architecture in Germany is different from modern architecture in Italy, France, or the northern countries… during the initial construction of Ankara by foreign architects, the urgency of the task left no time to contemplate matters of style. It is now time to focus on the need for a “national architecture” in Turkey¹⁷.

This change in the understanding of both government and the architects can be best captured by a highly symbolic event: the transformation of Ankara Exhibition Hall (1933) into the State Opera and Ballet (1948). Between 1944 and 1948, the Ankara Exhibition Hall, one of the most paradigmatic buildings of the New Architecture, designed by Şevki Balmumcu and an icon of Kemalist public space for fifteen years, was transformed into the State Opera and Ballet building by Paul Bonatz. The modernist aesthetic and constructivist composition of the original building were irreversibly demolished – its horizontal band windows filled in, its vertical tower eliminated, and its façade remodeled with a classical colonnade of Seljuk-Ottoman orders and details. With this transformation of the building, an architectural culture initially mobilized by ideals of modernity, progress, free expression, and contemporary construction was defeated by one of classicism, nationalism, and state power (fig. 6).

Architecture in the 1950s_Reflections of International Architecture in Turkey

In the 1950s, Turkish architecture opened up and produced by turning towards rationalism under the influence of Modern Architecture, which is becoming widespread in the Western world. Hasol describes this period in Turkish architecture as 

a rationalist period with a weight of universalist International Style, in which Turkish architecture was nourished by foreign publications and influences, regardless of technological, economic, social and environmental data¹⁸. 

This gave way to masses of prisms and the effects of Le Corbusier's rationalism to be seen in the architectural scene of that time. 

Bozdoğan evaluates this period as “a conspicuous departure from the cultural politics of the Early Republican period¹⁹”. The change in the economic policies, together with political changes, resulted in a shift from state to private sponsorship of architecture. This can easily be observed in the dominant building typologies between two modern periods of Turkish architecture:  examples of early republican modernism were mostly austere-looking government complexes, educational buildings, and cultural institutions, while cutting-edge architectural production after 1950 was most visible in hotels, offices, shopping centers, commercial and recreational projects with taller apartment blocks which emerged as the dominant residential typology²⁰.

The most symbolic structure of this period and the representative of aesthetic and ideological shifts is the Hilton Hotel in İstanbul, designed in 1952-5 by US corporate firm of Skidmore, Owings&Merril (with Sedad Hakkı Eldem as the local collaborating architect in Turkey) (fig. 7). Together with this structure, we see the emergence of the term “Hiltonism”²¹ used to describe the widespread architectural style used mostly in hotel and apartment buildings in Turkey with the same approach. As this period witnessed the change of dominancy in architectural production from Ankara to İstanbul in relation to political and economic developments, in Ankara also there was a continuing construction of governmental and commercial office buildings besides residentials. Etibank Offices (1953-5), Ulus Business Center (1954), General Directorate of State Waterworks (1958) and Emek Office Tower, known as ‘the Skyscaper’ (1959-64) were the remarkable ones with the same prismatic block configuration with minor variation such as slightly concave curve in elevations in Etibank, slightly convex facades in Ulus Business Center and use of glass skin and pilotis together in the General Directorate of State Waterworks. 

Following this term, Turkish architecture witnessed new and different approaches to design problems and saw the emergence of “pluralism” which came away from strict rationalism, relaxation, and search for fragmented form, attempts to break out of patterns. Besides, the search for regionalism intensified in order to reconcile modern architecture with local data in this period. In addition, after the great losses in the architectural heritage in previous periods, there has been a period when the awareness of conservation began to spread.

In the Ottoman Empire, the conservation of monuments mostly based on their economic and functional values and interventions in this scope were ruled by the foundation (vaqıf) they belong to. Foundations were the main organization in the conservation of, mainly religious, buildings in this period. With contemporary attempts for institutionalising the field of conservations and planning, started first in Tanzimat period (1839-1876), between 1869 and 1906, four regulations - Ancient Monument Regulations (AMR, Asar-ı Atika Nizamnamesi) were published. With this regulations, the first focus was archaeological artefacts but then, the scope was extended as the definition of ‘historic artefact” was introduced and developed to cover a more-extended period and cultures. These regulations stayed in rule during the Republican period, even until 1973, when the first extensive legislative arrangement of the republican era was realized²².

Before focusing on the legislation studies in the field of conservation, the main aim of the rulers of the New Republic was creating a nation state with secular institutions by getting detached from the Ottoman past, as stated above. This brought the evaluation of the Ottoman heritage “from a new, secular, independent and scientific perspective²³. During the period of secularization of the governmental institutions, in the field of conservation, between 1924 and 1935, some buildings of Ottoman heritage were abolished and resulted in the deterioration of these structures. Altınyıldız mentioned that due to the main focus of the rulers - building a nation and its new capital -, leaving the architectural heritage of the past in a state of decay was a direct but reluctant result. However, it must be stated that there was no direct reaction to demolishing the symbols of the Ottoman system while establishing the new secular system²⁴.

The first attempt for institutionalization in the field of conservation was the establishment of the national Commission for Conservation of Monuments (CCM) in 1933²⁵. This institution mainly focused on the documentation and registration of historic buildings together with the information activities which increased public awareness²⁶.

In this period, in relation to being in a transition period of institutions, the interventions were realized without any expertise and caused incompatible conditions. However, the aim of the Republic to “legitimate itself through the creation and propagation of a national heritage²⁷” caused a renewed interest in Ottoman buildings, and relatedly conservation of them. 

As stated above, in the 1950s, a new awareness on the architectural heritage arose and this resulted with the establishment of the High Council for Historic Real Estate and Monuments in 1951. This institution was designed as completely autonomous with sole-decision power. With the studies of this institution, the way of conserving the areas as well as individual buildings was opened. Additionally, listed buildings were grouped in three different categories and the main principles of conservation and identified interventions that are compatible with these categories were proposed²⁸.

Here, it must be stated that due to being in the early stages of the Republic and the modern architecture was still in progress and in use in varying approaches, the conservation field was focused on the historic buildings of the Ottoman period. The challenge was to produce the architecture of the modern secular state while getting detached from the Ottoman past but also conserving history at the same time.

As architecture is the most solid and powerful medium in displaying power for governments, the approach to the architectural heritage of different periods – maybe different political views – changes in history. For Turkey, with the rise of political Islam, emulation of the pre-Republican period gained power, which resulted in the construction of buildings resembling Ottoman Revivalist style and/or even Seljukid architecture. This shift in the taste of architecture, of course, is related to politics and brings hostility against Republican representations in any form, and in our case, against modern heritage, specifically Early Republican architectural heritage in Ankara.

Such kind of an aggressive attitude towards modern heritage buildings in Ankara can be evaluated as a threat towards more than just the physical appearance of these buildings. Reading the documentation of the architectural heritage of the Republican era in Ankara means reading the entire modernization program of the Republic itself; and what stands out is the threat to the legibility of the narrative that they all convey, together with the individual architectural qualities of all these structures, as well as the function and intention they carry. Every structure built in the 1920s, every recreation area, and every square completes the story, goals, and dreams of the founders of the Republic and the following generations. Eventually, today's political power tries to erase such a strong representation of a period from the collective memory of citizens and eliminate their bond with this physical evidence; and create the architecture of their own period referring to their preferred history. 

This selective approach can be observed through the comparison of architectural style of the buildings conserved and the ones demolished. The buildings constructed in the periods under the impact of international style mostly preferred to be demolished while it is almost impossible to find a demolished structure having references having the national, regional and/or local references. The preference of the architectural language does not only exist in the destruction implementations, it can be observed in the newly constructed buildings by the government or in the ones applied to facade renovation. The main governmental building, presidential complex – Aksaray-, constructed for the leader of JDP to be used as the president of the Republic, is the showcase of the preference of Seljukid/Ottoman references in architecture (fig. 8). After that, there have been constructed many governmental, administrational and/or educational buildings with this approach. This is followed by the facade renovation of existing modern buildings with historical references - the history they prefer to be seen.

In Ankara, after the election of a political-Islamist mayor in 1994 and JDP's (Justice and Development Party) coming to power in 2002, modern heritage began to be neglected and left to their faith by moving many public institutions to some new buildings or just because of the closing of many institutions, factories and/or governmental bodies. In Ankara, after 1990, the distribution of modern architecture on the periphery and outside of the historical city structure has been dragged into obscurity and then into extinction in the development process surrounding it. After 2000, it was seen that this process of great service and transformation of understanding by the central administration continued rapidly. Following that, Ankara witnessed a dense deconstruction activity on the modern heritage examples, even if they were listed as cultural heritage. Maltepe Havagazı Fabrikası (Gaswork Factory), Çubuk Barajı Göl Gazinosu (Dam Club), Marmara Köşkü (Kiosk), Etibank, İller Bankası (Provincial Bank) were some prominent buildings as representatives of new modern Turkey. Especially, İller Bankası gained a symbolic meaning due to the insistence of the Mayor for deconstruction and his victory photograph (fig. 9).

This understanding and approach to modern heritage continues by even gaining speed despite all the reactions, protests, and warnings today. The last two years witnessed the loss of many significant modern heritage examples, and more are listed as at risk by the NGOs (DOCOMOMO_tr, Chamber of Architects, Conservation and Restoration Professionals Association, etc.) in the field. Among these structures, there are hospitals, schools, and residential structures (due to the urban renewal projects) throughout the country. However, it is also possible to see the density of such destruction and danger in Ankara in relation to being the capital city and the center of modern architecture through modernization reforms of the Republic. During the last two years, a stadium (Cebeci Stadium), a tennis club (Ankara Tennis Club), a factory (Ankara Cement Factory), and a governmental building (Directorate General for State Hydraulic Works) were demolished in Ankara. In addition to those, three school buildings²⁹ were listed as at risk³⁰.

Additionally, Ankara Branch of Chamber of Architects listed six more modern heritage examples as planned to be demolished: Ankara Hali (Wholesale Market Hall, 1937), Ankara Municipality Building (former, 1947), Ulus Meydanı İşhanı (Office Block, 1954), Modern Çarşı (Market building, 1957), Anafartalar Çarşısı (Market building, 1967) and Ankara Ulus Meydanı Çarşı ve Büro Binaları (Market and Office building, 1967). All these buildings were examples of modern architecture in Turkey and all are constructed after an architectural competition³¹.

Besides representing different periods and approaches of modern architecture, all mentioned buildings - demolished and planned to be demolished - have an important place in the collective memory of citizens and also architectural memory of the Republic. For instance, Anafartalar Çarşısı has hosted Ankara's first supermarket with escalators, "Gima Stores" for years, which points to the memory value of the structure besides being a document that skillfully reflects the design concept of its period with its curtain wall materials and technologies, which were very new for its period. The loss of such buildings means the loss the architectural memory of a specific period and style as well as the loss of the memory of people that belong to that period. 

 Modern architecture has a direct relation with the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the modernization efforts and gave remarkable examples of modern movement in Turkey. As a newly founded and developing country, most of these examples were governmental, administrative and industrial buildings and/or complexes – implications of which can be grasped from the examplary list of destructed buildings given above –. The loss of such facilities means the loss of the architectural memory of a specific period and style, the loss of prototypes as well as the loss of the memory of people that belong to that period.

Bringing modern architectural language to the buildings constructed in the new capital is closely related to the aim of creating a modern society. With this aim, modernization was promoted in numerous ways to integrate it into the lives of citizens, and modern architecture helped to create modern citizens through modern, spacious, and functional spaces compatible with modern living/working standards. Due to this close relationship between the Republic and modern architecture, "The new formal representations of space were introduced as the principal and abstract expressions of republican modernism³²". Ankara, as the capital, is the most obvious stage of such a representation aim. 

It is seen that this destructive approach to modern architecture, which began to be seen frequently and aggressively in recent years, has different dimensions and causes behind it besides the architectural language of the structures: political. In the last 25 years the country has witnessed numerous destructions of cultural heritage assets, most of which are modern heritage examples and the representatives of a specific period in the history of the country.

The architectural extensions of politics are always in danger in countries with solid opposites in politics and society, like Turkey. The possible continuation of this selective approach will result in a total erasing of an era – the modern period – in the architecture of the Republic, which will end up in the loss of memory due to the lack of physical representations of that specific period.