Abstract
This article observes how architectural practice and symbolic appropriations interconnectedly produced space in 1920s’ Ankara, the new capital of the new Republic of Turkey. The once magnificent and powerful Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire, had its centuries long authority removed to disassociate the country from corporeal memories of its Ottoman past. The old capital was associated both with imperial and Islamic characteristics, and the republicans aimed to build a capital that spatially represented modernity. Interestingly, however, they employed Ottoman Revivalism, the architectural style in vogue at the time, to embody the political power of the new republic. This article emphasizes the contradiction between the “retrospective” politics of Ottoman Revivalism and the “modernist” vision of the republicans. It explores the sudden collapse of the revivalist approach by tracing the trajectory of modernist discourse as it was influenced by the political dynamics of the time.
Keywords
A picture contains the possibility of the situation that it represents.
1
Ankara: The New Republican Capital as a Space for Representation
Ankara, replacing Istanbul as Turkey’s capital city on October 13, 1923, was the outcome of secular and modern Turkey’s ideological divorce from its Islamic/Ottoman past. The construction of the new capital symbolized the transformation of society from a traditional Ottoman community to a modern Turkish nation. The founders of the republic utilized the dominant architectural style of the period to create the new capital in central Anatolia. The pointed arches, tiles, short minarets, and wide eaves of the Ottoman Revivalist style decorated the facades of new buildings in Ankara. At first, an Ottoman-looking national spirit did not bother the republican intelligentsia because the monumental character of the new public buildings was enough to epitomize the new regime’s political power between the years 1923 and 1928. However, if we consider the republicans’ attempt to reinvent Turkey as a nation-state based in Ankara and reject the Ottoman Empire based in Istanbul, using Ottoman Revivalism as an architectural style can be viewed as a major contradiction because of its symbolic inappropriateness. The republicans’ choice in moving the capital from Istanbul to Ankara shows that they were aware of how architecture affects the creation of a society and of the power of the representational nature of space. Thus, once the necessary professional and economic conditions had been established in Ankara, new architecture, that is, new representations of space, for the modern Turkish society replaced Ottoman Revivalism. The dynamics of “spatial production,” a concept that we owe to the critical theorist Henri Lefebvre, became a powerful mechanism of the modernity project. The case of Ankara in the late 1920s was an early experience of spatial production as a complex outcome of the interconnections between differing and complementary planes, another Lefebvrian concept.
Lefebvre defines architecture as a social practice supported by society and notes that the architect is never alone in the production of space. 2 He identifies space as a complex and dynamic entity and conceives the complexity and dynamics of space as a conceptual triad. This scheme suggests that space is simultaneously produced by the interconnections of representations of space (a conceptual model for the production of spaces by planners, architects, technocrats, and administrators), representational space (space directly lived through its associated images and symbols), and spatial practice (reproduction of space via society’s daily routines). 3 None of the physical, mental, or social determinants are adequate in themselves to produce space. Using Lefebvre’s conception, then, the spaces of early republican 4 Ankara (conceptually and physically formed by the influence of Ottoman Revivalism) were really produced only when their representations were perceived and experienced by individuals.
Based on Lefebvre’s space theory, Gottdiener advances the concept of the social production of space, where spatial production is a direct outcome of the interaction between political, cultural, and economic processes. 5 In many respects, the spatial production of the Turkish capital in connection with the revolutionary social context confirms Gottdiener’s conception. 6 The dismissal of Ottoman Revivalist architecture (within five years after its inception there) and the introduction of a new cubic architecture illustrate the intersections, contrasts, and inconsistencies of the representation of space and representational space in the extreme as simultaneous forms of production. The unstable relationship between the agents of space production can best be identified through the republicans’ discomfort with the spatial practices of society around the Ottoman architectural culture. Spatial practice, within the confines of perceived architectural space, incorporates a direct bond between the daily reality and routine of each member of society and the urban reality that embodies local and main routes and places connecting private and public areas and living, working, and leisure sites. 7 These new spaces in Ankara, more specifically the Ottoman Revivalist buildings, became solid constituents of society’s spatial practices, according to each member’s specific relationship with the social space within a certain network. In other words, spatial practice empirically combined the “modern” nation-state individual’s routines of everyday life with “traditional” Ottoman architectural symbols and images; thus, it intolerably established a certain cohesion with the culture of the past.
Within this framework, I attempt to underline the paradox of the republicans’ utilization of Ottoman characteristics in Ankara’s architecture while trying to erase Ottoman traces from all possible fields to nurture the idea of “Turkishness.” To inform those who may not be familiar with Ottoman Revivalism, I address the essence and politics of this style, as well as the reasons for the continuities from one period to the other. 8 These continuities complicate the recognition of conventional history’s ‘breaks’ 9 and provide a thought-provoking framework for discussion.
Because of its stylistic and historical references, Ottoman Revivalism has been inaccurately assigned to a retrospective category by mainstream architectural history. 10 Opposed to the implicit disapproving depiction of, for instance, the historiography of 1980s, 11 Sibel Bozdoğan titled the first chapter of her book Modernism and Nation Building, dedicated to the Ottoman Revivalists, as First Moderns. 12 Likewise, for a broad understanding of the architectural developments, I stress the socio-political developments of the period’s transformation from an empire to a nation-state, viewing the changes the country experienced from the nineteenth to the twentieth century as different yet related phases of modernization. I refrain from classifying one architectural approach as superior to the other, but rather try to interpret the interplay between the “physical and social landscapes” 13 of the period.
Following Lefebvre’s theoretical proposal, I also refer to the paradoxical relationships among representations of space, representational space, and spatial practice. It seems significant that this conceptual articulation of space is not only meaningful in understanding the changing status of Ottoman Revivalist space of this aforementioned period but that such an articulation also helps present the argument that space is continuously re-produced in different periods through different mental/symbolic and social/practical juxtapositions with its physical/conceptual representations. 14 I argue that Ankara’s Ottoman Revivalist spaces deserve attention because they are a record of this fluid nature of space in time.
Focusing solely on buildings inevitably causes the oversight of other representational levels in a discussion of space. 15 In this respect, the incompatibilities and consistencies that sometimes exist between the agents of spatial production are traced both in buildings’ material spatiality and the enunciative field. This field is conceived as a complex web that transforms utterances into statements and instills them with a particular context and representative content. 16 The above conception reinforces this study’s understanding of the political and architectural statements circulating during and after the early republican period and how their emergence and interplay regulated both the dismissal of Ottoman Revivalism and the formation of a powerful discourse of modernity.
Ottoman Revivalism: Theorizing the Local, a New Experience in Architectural Culture
Attempts to revitalize the traditions of classical Ottoman architecture can be considered the architectural echo of the Constitutional Revolution of 1908, a significant development of the late Ottoman period, the intention of which was to achieve reforms and improvements in every aspect of life. Ottoman Revivalism in architecture (1908–1928) was formulated by the Ottoman architectural intelligentsia 17 in the last years of the empire as a well-organized arrangement of architectural principles. The leading Turkish historian Halil Inalcık, who specialized in Ottoman history, noted the significance of the year 1909, in which a scientific and contemporary historiography of the Ottoman Empire began. What he declared for the development of contemporary Ottoman historiography 18 was true for architecture as well: the intellectual “enlightenment” of the 1880s 19 blossomed into an organized movement in architecture.
This revivalist movement was an “elite” interpretation of the stylistic features of classical Ottoman architecture, incorporating contemporary construction techniques and structural systems. Moreover, it was a twentieth-century reflection of an already-delayed academic architectural discourse that was initiated in the second half of the nineteenth century by a few scholarly enterprises, books, and articles. 20 This movement should be considered as the culmination of a theoretical effort, as well as of a natural display of Ottoman identity. It should be remembered, however, that although the establishment of an autonomous architectural thought had begun, architecture was under the patronage of the state, and public buildings were seen as the empire’s cultural heritage. 21 The revivalist tendency should be thought of as a decades-long attempt to theorize the local architecture, and it should be acknowledged for its pioneering role in creating a cognitive territory for Ottoman architecture in the absence of a social and institutional ground for developing and sharing an architectural discourse, as Ahmet Ersoy reminds us. 22
As noted in the previous section, because of its stylistic references to Ottoman architectural language, Ottoman Revivalism was generally categorized as a retrospective approach by 1980s architectural historiography, but this interpretation is viewed by some as inaccurate. Sibel Bozdoğan’s emblematic designation of “first moderns” views the style differently, calling it “the first modern discourse in Turkish architectural culture” and ‘the first systematic engagement of Turkish architects.” 23 This viewpoint reflects the thoughts of that period’s intellectuals. For instance, in 1924, Ismail Hakkı defined the characteristics of a contemporary national architecture through a careful synthesis of classical forms and new technology. 24 How that revivalist discourse was conceived by the Ottoman intellectuals of the time seems an important question: in 1912, Safvet Bey, a member of the Ottoman History Commission, stressed the importance of examining local architecture. 25 A dominant interest in Ottoman architectural values as a representation of Ottoman culture at that time is apparent in the words of Mehmed Ziya Bey, who stated that restoring Ottoman buildings should be done in a way that reflected the power of the Ottoman Empire. 26
During the nineteenth century, the tired Ottoman Empire endeavored a revival by absorbing contemporary Western knowledge, and 27 foreign architects such as Alexandre Vallaury, August Jachmund, Raimondo d’Aronco, and Otto Ritter shaped architectural education and practice in Turkey according to the neo-classical practices 28 of the era’s most significant school of fine arts, Paris’ Ecole des Beaux-arts. 29
By the early twentieth century, traditional Ottoman architecture had been, perhaps inevitably, overshadowed by European norms and patterns. Not surprisingly, this might have created a reaction and led some to regionalist architectural derivatives that highlighted cultural specificities. From a stylistic viewpoint, it can be argued that the main characteristic of Ottoman Revivalism was the adoption of traditional Ottoman forms of religious buildings to symbolize a national character. 30 However, the careful designs of revivalist buildings and expertise of the revivalist architects require a historical viewpoint rather than a stylistic one. Two eminent architects, Kemalettin Bey (1870–1927) and Vedat Tek (1873–1942), critically analyzed the dominance of the Western aesthetic over the Ottoman building culture and developed a national and powerful architectural program through a modernized Ottoman architecture.
Although these two leading figures of Ottoman Revivalism are always mentioned together, as they were contemporaries and the period’s most important educators and practising architects, their socioeconomic background, character, and careers were significantly different. 31 Together, they created a new understanding in architecture and an interpretation of classical Ottoman architectural knowledge, and influenced the architectural community. Of course, their architectural agenda was not shaped independently of the social climate. The dominance of rising nationalist ideas might have convinced some students of architecture to reject Western influence and enthusiastically support a pure Turkish/Ottoman architecture.
To clarify, according to Uğur Tanyeli, in the first years of the National Architecture Renaissance 32 (the original name of the movement), 33 it was connected to an imperial Ottoman ideal, rather than to Turkish nationalism. Tanyeli states that it was only within the political context of World War I that this ideal transformed into a national ideology, that is, Turkish nationalism. 34 In a historiographically formatted template, pioneers of this architectural movement were assumed to be strongly inspired by Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), the theorist and founder of Turkish nationalism, who defined Turkishness as independence from any and all religious domains. 35 This line of thought claimed that by adopting modern models of education and theoretical and practical sciences, the rational thought of Western civilization could be imported, but while protecting Turkish culture, moral values, and national identity. This widely accepted analysis generally confirms that Ottoman Revivalism was born as a nationalist style. The ductility of the prevailing claim, namely, that its primary task was to highlight national identity, contrasts the current views emphasizing a chronological correspondence. 36
It was not easy to stamp out projections of Western influence, especially for Vedat Tek, who was educated at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Despite his desire for a purely interpreted Ottoman architecture, his Ottoman architectural elements such as pointed arches, tiles, short minarets, and wide eaves could not veil the European influence in his work. The situation was not much different for Kemalettin Bey; although he had been educated at Istanbul’s Civil Service School of Engineering, he was taught by foreign academics. Yet in the early 1900s, after making a comprehensive study of Ottoman architecture to restore historical buildings in Istanbul, he expressed his admiration for the Ottoman style. 37 In a 1908 article in a weekly journal, Kemalettin Bey referred to Turkish/Ottoman architecture as an influential cultural heirloom that resonates from the Iranian border to the Balkans. 38 This reverence motivated him to constitute a contemporary interpretation of the well-proportioned and harmonious forms of Ottoman architecture that could be traced in all his later buildings. His designs demonstrated both a good knowledge of and the spirit of early Ottoman religious buildings as well as new construction techniques. In 1917, he indicated that the principles of modern architecture were as follows: “We need to design our buildings suitable for modern everyday life and construct them with modern materials, but in harmony with our national character and in line with the principles and rules of Turkish architectural style in construction and decoration.” 39 Vedat Tek and Kemalettin Bey both produced buildings that incorporated the precepts of Ottoman Revivalism through a rich display of traditional elements. Their confidence in Ottoman architectural heritage remained strong throughout their lives.
Building Ankara: From a Dusty Anatolian Town to a Capital City
Led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 40 the founders of the young Turkish republic were ardently determined to delete all remnants of Ottoman heritage. For this reason, they chose the war’s faithful Ankara 41 as the new capital, rather than the frivolous Istanbul. 42 For the reformist republicans, whose priority was the Westernization of all sectors of life, Istanbul was a lively reflection of the Ottoman past, unavoidably associated with imperial and Islamic attributes. In constructing the new capital city, they aimed to construct the essence of a modern social life. 43 These aims, plans, and endeavors juxtapose what Marshall Berman calls the “maelstrom” of modernization. 44 The political dynamics of the republican modernism project can be identified as the social process that conjures this maelstrom. In a state of “perpetual becoming” in Berman’s words, this process “nourished” a responsiveness to the new materiality and spirit of the time. Within this context, the republicans considered urban space as the setting where distinctive forms of modern life would emerge, and wherein traditional forms of life would fade away. The new living, working, and social spaces of the new nation’s society were assumed to be the mechanisms of the Westernization project. 45 In the early 1920s, Ankara had a population of only twenty-five thousand, and the city had been damaged by fires, and by neglect due to economic difficulties. Counter to its rich history, reaching back to ancient times, 46 its infrastructure was in poor condition. These circumstances allowed the state to navigate its own way through the “maelstrom” and give the city new meaning and shape.
It may be hypothesized that because of the critical economic conditions inherited from the Ottoman Empire, the urgent demands of transforming the dusty 47 town of Ankara into a glorious new capital negated any questioning of the politics of the Ottoman Revivalist style. Another hypothesis may be that the style left no room for mistrust of its “national” character because of its familiarity and thus the pride it instilled in Ankara’s citizenry. The traditionalist approach of the prevailing architectural movement and the innovative soul of the young republic were not considered to be in conflict until the late 1920s. The autonomy of Ottoman Revivalism dominated Ankara construction processes; consequently, representation of the new capital space 48 emerged as a professional outcome of the architectural knowledge and conception of the time.
The new capital, as a representational space, then, was paradoxically associated with the symbolic elements and signs of the past. 49 In addition, the spatial practice (which was produced by society’s relationship to the new capital’s urban spaces) was socially incorporated with this association. 50 An early example, tied to the codes and order of Ottoman Revivalism in Ankara, was the First Assembly building (see Figure 1), 51 located in Ulus Meydanı (Nation Square), the city’s most populated social space and the junction of Ankara’s historical and commercial areas. Society’s spatial practice here resulted in a complex cohesiveness corresponding to the daily routines of citizens from various economic and social strata. Accompanied architecturally by previous representational associations, national identity met daily urban life in front of the First Assembly in Ulus Square. 52 The spatial juxtaposition of old and new in this square constituted a spontaneous relationship between the building and the citizenry. As Falif Rıfkı Atay (1893–1971), an influential journalist and politician of the period, stated, the halls, meeting rooms, and even the corridors of the First Assembly building were intensively used by Mustafa Kemal and his friends and colleagues, as well as politicians and visitors. For many citizens, the building was involved in their daily routines and special occasions simply by its location. 53 From another perspective, interestingly, many of Ankara’s citizens contributed money to the First Assembly’s renovation, which reflected their symbolic devotion to the new capital and characterized the special bond between this building and society. 54 Public perception of the building was linked to the critical nature of those days, as well as to society’s daily routines. This building may have evoked particularly national feelings, because it was more involved in the War of Independence than any other built space in land, and powerfully symbolized (and still does) the continuity of a national collective memory, bridging the Ottoman and republican periods.
First National Assembly, by Hafi Bey, 1917–1923.
To accommodate new institutions, many elaborate buildings were constructed in this unpretentious town in a short period of time. Kemalettin Bey defined the Ankara of those days as an ambitious field of outstanding construction facilities, where new buildings, masterpieces of civilization, were raised in only a few weeks. 55 The monumental characters of these governmental and public buildings served as a political mean to symbolize the spectacular triumph and authority of the bureaucratically structured republican regime. They offered a cultural and aesthetic freshness to Ankara’s centuries-old taciturnity. With obvious Ottoman features, the National Assembly building, ministry buildings, state banks, and museums lined modern boulevards. Two facts perhaps suppressed the exploration of a different “representation of space”: the construction rush in an economically difficult time and republican leaders’ confidence in the architectural professionals of the time. The government’s foremost concern was the immediate completion of a new urban texture.
Representation of Space: Praising Ottoman Revivalist Architecture in the New Capital
Representation functions through its ability to influence and even construct opinion. 56 “Representational space,” in this respect, is a powerful realm of spatial production. Space should be understood in terms of its capacity to construct and process certain values linked to its original referent. Between 1923 and 1928, Ankara experienced an unbelievable modification within its existing spatial texture through the construction of new buildings and wide boulevards. It is reasonable to assume that the prominence of these edifices and greenspaces fostered pride in the republic, but their role in the political context was likely more vital because they represented the reality of the codes and institutions of the new regime. The facility of creating dominant forms of spaces in the new capital thus had sociopolitical extensions. It was quickened by the endeavor of producing new social relations as well as establishing a new bureaucratic and political structure. Atay, in his observations of life in Ankara then, notes that it was essential to build the city, 57 or that it was necessary for society to experience appropriate urban spaces, an ideal that was continually reinforced.
Initial intuition of the government towards the production of space in terms of architecture’s power to represent republican pride dovetailed with the period’s dominant architectural movement. Ottoman Revivalism also seemed to complement or reflect the image of the new capital (and the new regime), with its pretentious facades and elaborate details. Before a consciousness was raised among administrators and intellectuals against the style, the transfer of Istanbul’s architectural language to Ankara was not assumed to be problematic; furthermore, it may have been considered as physical evidence of the transfer of authority. The mission was to urbanize Ankara at an incredible speed to discredit the view that this miserable town would never replace Istanbul. It is not surprising then, that, Kemalettin Bey and Vedat Tek, two reliable architects, were employed to design and construct the important buildings.
Conceptualization and materialization of space (representations of space) contain inevitable bonds with social and political practice, and they are also tied to knowledge, power, production, and professional codes. 58 Among the interrelated realms of the production of space, representations of space play a substantial role, because their intervention does not occur by abstract modes but by physical construction. 59 In this respect, representations of space in the capital, which were established through architectural knowledge, obviously dominated other realms of spatial production. Simultaneously, imaginary and presumed symbolic embodiments of political power and national identity were conceived as the anticipated qualities of representational space, rather than natural symbolic expressions rooted in the politics of revivalist architecture.
In 1926, on the main artery running through Ulus Square, Vedat Tek built the headquarters of the Republican People’s Party, a modest two-storey building with rustic stone symmetrical facades, arched openings, and glazed blue tiles, reflecting Ottoman building traditions. After its completion, the republican government decided to use this building as the New (Second) National Assembly and transfer the First National Assembly building to the Republican People’s Party due to its inadequate size for parliament.
Although Ankara was now the political and administrative center of Turkey, there was ongoing opposition to it replacing Istanbul. Objections against this poor Anatolian town’s new status were especially voiced by Istanbul newspapers, such as Tanin, and turned into a polemic 60 by reactionary responses from the republican Hakimiyet-i Milliye, the newspaper supporting Ankara’s official standpoint. For instance, against Hüseyin Cahit Bey’s (1875–1957) (Tanin) criticism that making Ankara the capital would geographically and mentally isolate the government, 61 contrary opinions were published in Hakimiyet-i Milliye in October 1923, and followed by a series of articles on the same topic. According to the republican daily, the troubled reality of Anatolia during the war could not be discerned from the pompous palaces and gardens of the Bosphorus. 62 The prominent poet and politician Yahya Kemal Beyatlı’s (1884–1958) well-known saying that “the best thing about Ankara is returning to Istanbul” summarized many people’s thoughts about Ankara.
To give the critics their due, however, Ankara was insufficient regarding proper accommodation for state officers, politicians, official visitors, and international guests, and many countries refused to move their embassies from Istanbul. The British, French, and Italian governments’ insistence on their foreign offices remaining in Istanbul, and sending only representatives to the new capital, was particularly unacceptable to the republican government, because it undermined the new capital’s authority. 63
Given the above context, the construction of a luxurious hotel in Ankara was of special importance. The Ankara Palas Hotel, a collaborative work between Vedat Tek and Kemalettin Bey, and a typical example of Ottoman Revivalism, was begun in 1924 and completed in 1927 (see Figure 2). This hotel aimed to host foreign guests and provide accommodation to politicians and some bureaucrats with important administrative positions, especially to those whose permanent homes were still in Istanbul. It was strategically built on the main route, across from the First and Second Assembly buildings. 64 In the hands of two skillful architects, the building displayed the distinctive qualities and characteristics of the revivalist approach. The two symmetrical wings of the rectangular building were joined by a high entrance portal, itself emphasized by a dome. Corner towers, rhythmic arched openings, and classical Ottoman ornamentation gave the building both an imposing effect and a unique urban coherence. The architects’ enthusiasm about implementing a contemporary program and up-to-date building technology combined their modernist understanding with a renewed comprehension of Ottoman architectural knowledge and taste. The hotel provided modern comfort to the guest rooms via its heating and lighting systems, and the grand ballroom at the center, with various public spaces surrounding it (such as tearooms and a restaurant with a kitchen suitable for international cuisines) brought the building to the forefront of Ankara’s new public life. As the most popular gathering place of local and foreign diplomats, political figures, state officers, as well as newly Westernized members of society, the Ankara Palas became the city’s symbol of modernity and civilization. 65 Through the social life it imposed, the building affected the everyday routines of many members of the new capital.
Ankara Palas Hotel, by Vedat Tek, Kemalettin Bey, 1928.
Another building that transformed the modest urban texture of Ankara was the seven-storey Second Vakıf Apartments (built by Kemalettin Bey 66 in 1928) in the Ulus district (see Figure 3). Covering a huge urban space, these apartments became a model for other Ankara housing developments, not only because of their refined architectural composition that created a strong visual effect from various perspectives but also because of their modern appointments. It can be argued that the building’s subtle and indirect stylistic references to Ottoman architectural heritage and its commitment to modern developments originated complex meanings. More than any other building of Ottoman Revivalism, this edifice reflected the new norms and thus initiated a genuine, albeit unacknowledged, modernization movement in Turkish architecture.
Second Vakıf Apartments, by Kemalettin Bey, 1928.
Within Ankara’s intense construction activity, Guilio Mongeri’s (1873–1953) bank buildings had special status. Located in the Ulus district, on the main avenue of the city toward the newly developing southern areas, Iş Bankası (business bank) (1928) and Ziraat Bankası (agricultural bank) (1926–1929) powerfully reflected the architectural norms of the revivalist approach. The former, with its elaborated facades (see Figure 4), and the latter, with its exaggerated Ottoman features such as tall square corner towers with wide eaves, architraves, and intricate molded frames around the repeating arched windows (see Figure 5) generated dramatic effects. The careful and sophisticated application of Ottoman Revivalist architectural thought in the buildings of two powerful financial state institutions was connected to a more cosmopolitan 67 character, one that fit well with the buildings’ roles in Turkey’s financial developments of that time.
Is Bankası, by Guilio Mongeri, 1928.
Agricultural Bank, by Guilio Mongeri, 1926–1929.
Another important architect of the period, Arif Hikmet Koyunoğlu (1888–1982), was also invited from Istanbul to Ankara because of the increasing amount of construction in the capital. His three buildings in Ankara, all enveloped in elaborate and remarkable palatial facades, constituted the last elegant examples of Ottoman Revivalism in the city. One can imagine the pressure Koyunoğlu might have felt to accurately convey the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (1927) symbolic aspect, that is, the state’s confidence in choosing Ankara as the new capital, especially to Western countries and their representatives. Koyunoğlu’s other two projects were also important spaces for the new republic, the Ethnography Museum (1925–1928) (see Figure 6) and the Türkocağı Building 68 (Turkish Heart) (1926–1930), both of which would house representations of the state’s new cultural policies. All three buildings represented the ultimate presence of Ottoman architectural spirit in majestic enthusiasm, independent of the current ideological context that might be described as an emphasized Turkishness, especially in these two cultural institutions. Koyunoğlu’s classical Ottoman forms retained their dignity during the construction period with the support of Mustafa Kemal, who wished for an authentic Turkish architectural language rather than a replica. 69
Museum of Ethnography, by Arif Hikmet Koyunoğlu, 1928.
The scope of the architectural developments in Ankara within a short time can best be evaluated by taking into consideration the city’s difficult circumstances at the time, described by Ronald C. Lindsay, the first British Ambassador of the republican period, in his official reports to London about the Ankara of 1925. His pessimistic prediction that Ankara would not sustain its position as the capital was formed on the city’s poor spatial offerings, which were far from contemporary standards. Keenly awaiting the completion of ongoing construction, especially the Ankara Palas, he drew an extremely underdeveloped urban image in his two reports. In contrast, however, he described the young republican ministers and hardworking state officers as dynamic and optimistic, fully different from the “clumsy” Ottoman pashas of the empire. Lindsay also described the citizens as incredibly hopeful, with great confidence in the future. 70 Ziya (Makaracı) Efendi, a long-time inhabitant of Ankara, described the years of Ulus Square’s construction as full of dust and mud. 71 The prominent author Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901–1962) portrayed the Ankara of 1928 as a huge construction site, being rebuilt in one part, while the other (old) part continued its former dense everyday life. 72 These descriptions reflect the indisputable value of the new buildings, each contributing to completing the urbanscape.
From this standpoint, it is understandable that during the early years of the republic, political authorities expressed no negative views about the architectural style of Ottoman Revivalism. On the contrary, government support 73 enabled this mass construction. The new public buildings were felt to perfectly represent the republican ideals of the capital space. It is also possible to consider these buildings as codes for the unwavering permanence of the new capital. Neither Kemalettin Bey nor Vedat Tek, and neither Guilio Mongeri nor Arif Hikmet Koyunoğlu, encountered any ideological demands. They controlled the whole process of the building activity and applied the principles of Ottoman Revivalist architecture throughout, especially in the prime facades. Portions of traditional features were extravagantly used as extreme manipulations of this historicist experience. According to Tanpınar, Turkish architecture was trying to create its own stylistic paradigm within the construction experiments in Ankara. He observed that the city’s current actuality was partly the new buildings and partly Mustafa Kemal’s (private) life. Tanpınar compared this situation to an invisible and unpublished daily read by every member of society except you, and they were all transferring the current news to you. 74
As these buildings appeared on Ankara’s new boulevards, in newspapers, popular magazines, and on postcards, they indisputably served as powerful symbols of the government’s triumph. In a way, they helped develop a national sprit. The sensational ambiance postponed an earlier concern for representational relativity of this nostalgic style as articulated by Ottoman architectural culture.
The Conflict between Representations of Space and Representational Space in Ankara
The growing modernist tendency of republicans inevitably generated some “oppositions, contrasts and antagonisms” 75 in the production of space. By 1927, the dominance of the state had replaced the autonomy of the architects and planners that had subsisted during the early phase of the capital’s spatiality in terms of its conceptualization and representation. The republicans’ revivalist enthusiasm soon disappeared when confronted by the fact that associated images and symbols of the new spaces contradicted the prevailing modernist ideology. The Ottoman images of society’s memory stimulated this contradiction, rather than the aesthetic or functional qualities of the physical space. Physical space and its associated images in the new capital may seem to overlay spatial practice; however, it is the perceptions and experiences of society members that give ground to urban spaces and symbolic values. Society’s spatial practice is significant in this triad because it denotes the superimposition of people’s daily routines and urban reality; its significance stems from its social self-evidence. Each member of society perceives and experiences urban space in a cohesiveness of one’s own, according to a network of one’s living place, working place, and the public places one frequents. 76 The newly shaped political and physical climate of the capital might have brought “new contradictions into play” 77 in this small trade city, 78 yet a conflict between the revivalist language of the built space and members of society seems implausible. 79 The conflict was really between the symbolic architectural elements and republican ideology’s representation of the space through which a modern society could be shaped. Within the republican ideal, the state’s role was to fundamentally transform society, and Ottoman Revivalist forms were (seen as) a throwback to society’s former consciousness. The attentive modernist authority of the state managed and mastered the dissolution of the ostensible coherence of the triad of the perceived (spatial practice), conceived (representation of space), and lived (representational space) space. 80 This shift propounded the state’s quest for another coherence that aspired to represent modernist ambitions.
In republican ideology, the notion of change was a crucial social phenomenon. It was presented both as the outcome of republican power and the essence of life. Against the possible discursiveness of real-life situations and the potential ambiguities of a transformation period, the notion of change was interposed as a natural aspect of Turkish architectural discourse. Recent scholarship of architectural history, on the other hand, is suspicious about whether it is possible to disregard the vague awareness of the young republic about architecture. The acceptability, and indeed, accuracy, of ignoring the modernization endeavors of the late Ottoman period for the sake of sharp definitions and clear beginnings in Turkish architectural history is being questioned.
Although a definite commentary on the creation of a modern Turkish society through architecture can be criticized, the developments can be viewed as attempts to remove all traces of the collective memory of an Ottoman-Islamic past. 81 This understanding became extremely influential as an inclusive and radical modernity project, and all forms of past expressions in all fields were rigorously discredited, including the autonomous field of architecture. There was official and intellectual agreement and social approval that traditional associations were incompatible with the desired modernity. At every turn, Mustafa Kemal declared that appropriate expression of the modern character could only be achieved through the progressive modernism of the Western world. Not surprisingly, this view was also an indication of a remarkable change to come in the field of architecture, as the present architectural practice was still devoted to cultural and historical continuity in a classicist manner.
By this official recognition of the power of representational space (as a fundamental constituent of the process of the production of space), the relationship of ideology and architecture brought forth different consequences. The ideological conception of space fully governed architectural conceptions. A new and programmed formal approach toward architecture in the capital in a sense epitomized the single-party regime of the 1930s. The Republican People’s Party’s political propaganda publicized the new–modern and old–traditional as a rigid dichotomy in every aspect of everyday life. Official publications promoted the “internationalization of everyday life” 82 by illustrating the conflicting currents. Within this political climate, the ideological belief in a recently discovered Westernized architectural reserve seems to have been the main reason for not allowing a heterogeneity and dynamism that might have better reflected the revolutionary character of Turkey of the 1920s. In those years, and decades later, judging the Ottoman Revivalist movement by modernist biases 83 hindered an unorthodox reading of it. On the other hand, there was plenty of room for agreement about its apparent “inappropriateness.”
Obviously, the absolute intolerance of Ottoman fashioned neo-classical architecture was not purely architectural. The conscious elimination of a “domed” and “arched” building syntax was interconnected to a powerful rhetoric that was constituted and articulated within new sociopolitical conditions. Social scientists of the period were encouraged to theorize how Turkish culture differs from Islamic culture. 84 The idea of a modern Turkish nation, a democratic community instead of a religious one, was enshrined as the basis of a secular state. 85 For example, this new nation-state promoted the image of a modern and secular woman as a powerful representation of its modern and secular identity. 86 All these developments prompted republicans to set up a new understanding of the production of space that would embody the secular and modern character of the young Turkish republic.
Representational Space and the Revised Agenda of the Republicans: Discrediting Ottoman Revivalism
Over time, contradictions arose in Ankara’s’ production of space; the built representational space was not in accordance with republican inspirations. It did not rupture past connections but promoted the past. Although intervention of representational space occurs by symbolic means (in contrast to the substantial role of representation of space through construction), it influences all recent spatial practice. Lefebvre expresses representational space as “fluid and dynamic,” “alive and speaking,” 87 and, similarly, a new consciousness of spatial production emerged in Ankara. The dual nature of space advanced the transformation of the spaces of political power and national identity into the power and nationality of spaces. Based on this understanding, Ottoman Revivalism was excluded from the realm of spatial production because it became obvious that the republican ideology would not achieve consistency through “Ottoman-speaking” representational spaces.
Hilde Heynen states that “modernity is constantly in conflict with tradition, elevating the struggle for change to the status of purveyor of meaning par excellence.” 88 Although Turkey’s modernity project had its own particularities, it was not different from modernity projects in general, which gain identity by suppressing the old. 89 Mustafa Kemal’s great ambition to foster a contemporary society became clearly evident in Ankara’s spatial production especially after 1927. Ottoman Revivalist architects endured the argument that their style did not ideologically fit the modern era. Their disappointment in the government’s shift in opinion can be illustrated by Kemalettin Bey’s 1927 complaint: “I dedicated thirty years of my life to invigorating and reflecting Turkish style in my architectural works . . . now they denigrate this style by calling it the architecture of mosque and tomb.” 90 Vedat Tek’s letters to his family hinted that his and Mustafa Kemal’s friendship was ruptured by the latter’s disparaging views on Ottoman architectural style. 91 Tek emphasized the mastery of local architects: “Our ancestors paid great attention to the beauty and stability of architectural works. Because buildings were constructed according to the traditional rules and methods of preceding national architects, a perfect architecture was created. As national architecture and Turkish art is becoming despised, national art fades away.” Koyunoğlu, who designed the Turkish Heart building, was also severely criticized. The building’s strong connection to Ottoman forms was found to be improper, especially in an edifice that would house the new ideology of “Turkishness.”
Regularities of the modernization program needed to be socially approved and culturally legitimized. As architecture became recognized as a sociocultural instrument, a new political approach began to emerge. Especially after 1928, producing modern space became an essential part of the republican agenda, but through political appropriateness rather than architectural pertinence. Replacing the neo-Ottoman style with a Western understanding occurred in the absence of an architecturally theoretical base and specification. Instead, the republican regime initiated a powerful resolution of modernity, and the representation of space in this conjuncture became the major facet of modernist discourse. The theoretical void in architecture enabled the intense circulation of “statements”—the elementary units of discourse, 92 which together registered modernity as a significant contemporary character. More than their architectural significance, the provocative quality of these statements evoked a generally negative perception of Ottoman Revivalism.
The expulsion of Ottoman Revivalism indicated the concurrent embracing of a new mode of the representation of space. With a one-dimensional approach, republican ideology identified with an imported “modern” architecture and espoused it as its revolutionary architecture. An oppressive adherence to this new architecture was established, regardless of whether its essence (in theory and practice) was really progressive in international terms or autonomous in Turkey’s architectural climate. The simple cubic forms of this functionalist new architecture and its new spatial codes and symbols were believed to promote new spatial practices for society. This new triplet of production of space demanded a new coherence; thus, it ensured a stable interconnection among the perceived, the conceived, and the lived, and simultaneously ensured state authority. Lefebvre subtly asks, “What is an ideology without a space to which it refers?” And he replies, “What we call ideology only achieves consistency by intervening in social space and in its production.” 93 According to him, ideology consists primarily in a specific discourse about social space.
There is no discourse that appears accidentally or with the initiation of a single person or a single idea. The appearance of discourse cannot be abstracted from its associated field of facts. Objects of discourses exist under positive conditions of a complex group of relations, and these relations characterize discourse itself as a practice. 94 Different from other practices, discourses are practically present, with their capacity of producing changes in the fields in which they operate. Statements can confirm positive conditions that appropriate new spatial production. The status of a certain formation is determined within the fragmented nature of a complex web of “said things,” and “enunciative practice” qualifies the so-called status. 95 The said things may rank a referred object (for instance, the Ottoman Revivalist movement) in terms of “lesser privileges and prestige” 96 or they may discursively ensure a stable privilege and prestige for another (for instance, the Modern movement).
In 1927, remarkable praise for Ankara’s first “modern” building, the Ministry of Health, by Theodor Jost (see Figure 7), a German architect, appeared in Hakimiyet-i Milliye, as a forerunner of official and public support of this new architectural understanding: “The Ministry of Health building has actually become the most contemporary building of our Ankara. It resembles the latest and the most modern buildings in Europe.” 97 This compliment displayed an enthusiastic welcoming of European architecture and explicitly raised notions of contemporariness and modernity as a matter of importance. The author’s emphasis of “our Ankara” in the article declared genuineness of feeling for Ankara as the new capital, and was a veiled manifestation of Istanbul’s “apartness” in a new conjuncture. In addition, by the agenda-setting power of the press, Westernization was specified as the absolute direction in architecture. The simple geometric forms and undecorated facades of the Ministry of Health 98 was well matched with the preconditioned Westernization idea, and the building’s resemblance to European equivalences reinforced public confirmation of this new style. The first appearance of architectural modernity in Ankara occurred in a politically appropriate context and prior to being discussed and theorized architecturally.
Ministry of Health, by Theodor Jost, 1927.
With the emergence of early examples of modern architecture, a systematic opposition to the Ottoman Revivalist style arose among important figures of the new regime. In 1928, Ahmet Haşim (1884–1933), a well-known author and poet whose religious metaphors were popular, pointed out that “a medresseh [a theological school attached to a mosque] architecture flourishes among our architects. Domes remind us of the turban of the religious fanatic. Now, hotel, bank, school, and port house, all are caricatures of mosques, just missing minarets on the outside and a minbar inside. Our architects call this type of building style Turkish architecture. Is this ugliness really Turkish architecture? This kind of return to the past is degenerative.” 99 Calling Ottoman Revivalism “degenerative” and public buildings “caricatures of mosques” resonated in the revolutionary atmosphere of secular and republican Turkey. This atmosphere was created by a series of substantial reforms, particularly Mustafa Kemal’s abolition of the Islamic world’s highest religious authority in 1924. 100 Dissociated from any past connection to Eastern-Islamic culture, a Western image of a secular nation-state was formed. Modernization of the constitution, educational reforms, a new Turkish alphabet (replacing the Arabic script), new clothing rules (instead of traditional and religion-based dressing), and women’s rights were all parts of a complete political, social, and cultural change. The main characteristic of Ottoman Revivalist architecture was its Ottoman sprit. Thus, the so-called incapacity of this “retrospective” style in terms of bringing innovations or a progressive program accelerated its collapse.
The prominent architectural historian Celal Esat Arseven (1875–1971) also declared his dislike for the revivalist architecture: “Now, just for the sake of making national art, using elements of a dead art, such as fake domes and eaves, plastered tiles and structurally redundant arches, is nothing but to misunderstand the notion of national in art. That’s the reason why we cannot nourish a sincere affection for current national things; moreover, we cannot determine why we find them ugly. Spaces resembling tombs, hospitals imitating mosques, shops emulating public fountains evoke disgust rather than arousing a national enthusiasm. We don’t like them.” 101 The conflict between the modernist ideology of the new regime and the stylistic approaches of the time appropriated the formation of Turkish modernism in architectural practice. As an outcome of the awakening caused by the contemporary modernist movement in Western architecture, Celal Esat called for a revolution in architectural education to a formalist approach and an overthrow of the stylistic dominance of Istanbul’s architectural schools. 102 Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu (1889–1974), a famous author and political figure of the period, complained about the apartments and official buildings of the new capital in his famous novel Ankara. 103 He ironically compared the buildings to Indian palaces, and, like Hasim, referred to this style as a generated continuation of the Ottoman medresseh. When a prominent intellectual makes such comments, he or she influences public opinion.
In the 1930s, the journal Mimar (renamed Arkitekt in 1935 as a linguistic reflection of Westernization), was very influential in terms of creating a new and modern architecture both in relation to Turkey’s socio-political context and to the modernist architectural movement in the Western world. In 1931’s Mimar, Aptullah Ziya defined the new profile of an architect: as an intellectual leader guiding social life instead of merely a technical builder. 104 He emphasized the death of decorative issues that require craftsmanship in favor of those that require intellectual thinking. In 1933, Celal Esat called for taking charge of duties in architecture within the scope of the great Turkish revolution. 105 Two important architects of the period, Behçet and Bedrettin, pointed out the need for a new understanding of Turkish architecture in accordance with innovations in social fields: “a new architecture, like new letters, new language, and new history.” 106 In 1941, Abidin Mortaş (1904–1963), cofounder of Mimar, emphasized the necessity of renewing everything after the republic’s proclamation. The difficult mission of the Turkish architect was to develop a new architectural identity based on social reforms and people’s changing needs. 107
Politicians, authors, and architects of the period further echoed the call for a shift in the capital’s current modernist mood. Of course, these echos could not operate without the existence of an “associated domain.” 108 Dependent on their particular context, the views above would have been valid and effective because of their discursive capacity rather than their architectural precision. They were generally lacking a spatial/architectural vocabulary, yet well equipped and catchy in terms of evoking social reaction. Confronted with such broad-based dislike, Ottoman Revivalism disappeared from current practice and left the architectural terrain open to new arrangements. The common standpoint was the emphasis on the political atmosphere of the time, which strengthened the architectural thesis that there existed an urgent need for reforming the profession. For this reason, accepting and establishing a middle-European modern architectural culture needed to be intertwined with ideological considerations. The problem remained obscure: If there were a Turkish modernism free from ideological positions, how would it develop, generate, and portray its progress?
New Architecture in the New Capital
Representation of space is linked to professional “knowledge, to relations of production and to the order which those relations impose.” 109 Subsequent to German city planner Herman Jansen’s (1869–1947) success in the international competition of the Ankara Master Plan in 1927, 110 the capital city’s modern formation and vision was associated with German-speaking architects. 111 Representation of spaces began to be identified with invited foreign architects and their central European modernism. Atay, a close witness of these years and an influential intellectual figure in Ankara, 112 designated Ottomans as “monument makers with no adequate sense of urbanization” and narrated the public enjoyment of having a planned urban development in the capital. Mustafa Kemal was committed to creating a modern city with international norms and visions, modern buildings, public squares, wide boulevards, green areas and recreational spaces. Atay’s memoirs relate how Mustafa Kemal was actively involved in the urbanization process and his enthusiasm during discussions with Jansen. During the meetings with the German planner, his detailed interest on the routes and how the public spaces would be linked by motorways 113 indicated that his project of building a modern nation put special emphasis on spatial production.
Hakimiyet-i Milliye, which systematically propagated republican ideals and operations, publicly praised the “arrival of New Architecture in the country through the new constructions in Ankara.” It announced the break from “old mentalities and traditions” in favor of the “truth” of the new century, 114 and introduced a relatively professional architectural discussion as a general topic in an old-versus-new tension. Considering the significant effect of the press on society in this period, and especially this publication’s influence on public awareness, the apparent official approval of the new architecture by the republican government must have created widespread appreciation among the public as well. If this holds true, the popular perception of the new style as an appropriate spatial expression of the modern regime might then be understood as an effective product of this official discourse, one that also shaped the architectural historiography of the country throughout the century.
This concept continued to feature in the press. La Turquie Kemaliste (1933–1949) 115 was a periodical that aimed to introduce the modern Turkey and its new nation to the Western world. A continuous pride in the nation during the construction years of “the city of future” was presented through the experiences of ordinary citizens, such as waiters and taxi drivers. 116 The majority of articles displayed the modernist aesthetic of the new capital; for example, an illustration from the April 1935 issue showed a utopian image of Ankara with a group of cubic buildings under the title “Ankara Construit” (The Built Ankara). 117 Within this image, there was no trace of the previous decade’s architectural style. Yedigün, a popular 1930s weekly magazine, also supported the republican regime, especially its modernization of urban social life. Türk Yurdu, a nationalist publication 118 established in 1908, illustrated the old and new contrast through articles about politics and architecture in the new capital. Within this social and political climate, then, it was not surprising that the cityscape would take shape according to the designs of the invited European architects. Because of the convenient international political conditions, a distinctive German-accented language of architectural modernism 119 was propagated as the natural spatial expression of this republican culture.
Austrian architect Clemenz Holzmeister (1886–1983), who was invited to Ankara in 1927 to construct the Ministry of National Defense, was the most influential architect in the capital. He designed the majority of government buildings in the Ministries Quarter with a mission for them to reflect the regime’s political power and the authority of the Grand National Assembly (1938–1960) (see Figure 8). 120 He also constructed the presidential residence (1931–1932), in close consultation with Mustafa Kemal.
Grand National Assembly, by Clemenz Holzmeister, 1938–1960.
Swiss architect Ernst Egli (1893–1974) and German architect Bruno Taut (1880–1938) were also significant figures in the republican period’s architectural practices and education. Egli contributed to Turkish architectural education by introducing his functionalist and rational approach to design studios in the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul. Classicist Beaux-arts concepts were replaced by contemporary discussions on urban problems, housing issues, and economic and demographic facts. 121 The Ismet Paşa Institute for Girls (1930), 122 with its simple asymmetrical composition of horizontal and vertical rectangular masses, long-spanned window sills, flat roof, and minimalist facades constituted a typical example of his architectural approach and interpretation of the basic principles of European modernism (see Figure 9). Taut emphasized regional identity and function. He held that all discussions of architectural form and style should be abandoned to reach the essence of architecture (see Figure 10). 123 The Faculty of Language and History-Geography building (1937–1938), with its weighty prismatic masses, created a heavy expression in contrast with its playful use of stone in the façades, its asymmetric canopy, and its repeating square windows. Ankara’s new higher education institute, The Faculty of Language, was spatialized through a formal and heavy aesthetic.
Ismet Pasa Institute for Girls, by Ernst Egli, 1930.
Faculty of Language and History-Geography, by Bruno Taut, 1937–1938.
Hans Poelzig, Martin Wagner, Paul Bonatz, Martin Elsaesser, Franz Hillinger, Margarete Schütte, and Gustav Oelsner were a few of the other invited professionals who spent many years in Turkey after the 1930s. As a product of modernist urban planning principles and the architectural aesthetics of German-speaking countries, a new spatial culture now represented republican Turkey. Spatial development progressed within a specific ideological context. A social linkage was created between the production of urban space and society, with the aim to produce a new society and new social relations through the virtues of built modern space. Turkish architects such as Seyfettin Arkan (1904–1966), Şevki Balmumcu (1905–1982), Şekip Akalın (1910–1965), Recai Akçay (1909–1967), and Bedri Uçar (1911–1978) began to play a role in the production of space after 1933. They designed public buildings entirely from a modernist architectural understanding informed by middle-European principles. 124 Among those buildings, Akalın’s railroad station (1935–1937) held a significant place because of its symbolic role in welcoming visitors to the new capital and showcasing the power of the new state (see Figure 11). The insufficiency and modesty of the old one (which featured in many Ankara arrival anecdotes in the 1920s) can be thought as the main reason for the monumentality of the new building as a “grand gate.” 125
Ankara Railroad Station, by Sekip Akalin, 1935–1937.
That all aspects of the capital’s modern architecture were forming a consistent whole with the ideals of the young republic became a common assessment in the 1930s and in conventional historiography. Usual stylistic remarks described modern forms as the most natural reflection of the new Turkey. The prevalent architectural concern was interestingly combined with the forms’ political status; how modern the cubic forms were was already a synonym for how republican they were. The so-called unity of the perceived, conceived, and lived space was then once more shaped or re-produced in the new climate of Ankara as architecture became an active operational component of the modernization project. This unity, however, was complex, formed not only by the influence of modernism but still shaped by the effects of revivalism. Ernst E. Hirsch (1902–1985), a German professor who lived and worked in Turkey between 1933 and 1952, described his impressions of Ankara during his first visit in 1936, dominantly referring to the citadel and Ankara Palas. He stressed the contrast between the modest train station, huge empty spaces, and the lively Palas. 126 His memoirs showed that removing Ottoman Revivalism from the discourse of the republican regime could not erase the power of a revivalist building, both in terms of its spatial representation and daily practices.
Within this peculiar conjuncture, one may pose the following questions: How was the public perception of architectural modernity shaped in Turkey? and Was the modernist discourse an illusionary interpretation, a prestructured phenomenon or a normal process? These questions cannot be answered without taking into consideration the rigorous mechanisms of the 1930s general modernization project. Compared to the first years of the republic, the 1930s were more discursively equipped to create a modern society. Architecture was in this period a significant part of a larger realm of modernist discourse, embodying technology, industrial production, gender issues, and education problems, actually, a programmed progress in all areas of life. As a political strategy, modernization was publicized in various ways, and all members of the society were subjected to the intensive promotion of a Westernized modern Turkey. The new architectural forms in Ankara were a practical way for this political strategy to penetrate into citizens’ everyday experiences. Somehow, the modern architecture quickened the laborious task of creating a modern citizen, who would live and work in comfortable spaces, use cultural or leisure public areas, visit urban parks, and use the transportation routes and networks that linked those spaces. This task, of course, could not encompass the spatial practices of all social strata, but those in power still optimistically worked toward achieving it for society overall.
An impartial observer of conventional history may be struck by the parallels drawn with the ideology and the new architecture in early republican Ankara. The conceptual, material, and social gestures of this new architecture were thought to be cohesive in terms of its formal knowledge, associated images, and society’s spatial practices. The unornamented cubic forms of modern architecture were assumed to be in perfect symmetry with the symbolism of republican modernism. This derivation did not imply a lower level of attention than the so-called asymmetry of the revivalist architecture and republic; in both experiences (despite the existing conflicts between them), architectural form was thought to be a decorative/stylistic substitution for the empire or the republic. The argument for a sweeping ideological change in architecture during the 1930s was formulated in the dominant presence of an ultimate concern for form. Bureaucratically structured in the late 1920s (and historiographically in the 1980s), the spatial practices of the citizenry in the new urban space of the 1930s were assumed to be part of a consistent and meaningful whole of the Turkish citizen’s daily routines. 127 The new formal representations of space were introduced as the principal and abstract expressions of republican modernism. The geometric purity of plans, functional space allocations, and unornamented façade drawings, models, photographs, and project descriptions were the proficient agents of a new architecture in a conceptual world. Representational space was likewise believed to embody modernist codes and symbols through pure forms. In other words, the new regime’s Westernization ideals discursively identified with the rational clarity of purist modernist forms, and this identification precipitated the annihilation of Ottoman Revivalism.
Conclusion: Tides of Architectural Culture
The Ottoman Revivalist experience, or let us say, the space-production adventure of the young Turkish republic, was inseparable from its social context. The process of politically building a modern nation-state was linked with the production of space. Because of this link, one can interpret early republican Ankara as a special case, characterized by the interconnected nature of the Lefebvrian triad (perceived, conceived, and lived) and the dominant role of the representational aspects of space in a period of nation-state building. As this article postulates, the status of Ottoman Revivalist architecture declined over time due to the new (and political) comprehension of space as something more than the outcome of professional design. The years between 1923 and 1928 were critical for Ottoman Revivalism; within this short period, the movement experienced its brightest days, followed shortly by a collapse that happened simultaneously with the gradually expanding tendency toward modernization in the 1930s. A powerful modernist discourse controlled the Westernization process of institutions and society, and hastened the decline of Ottoman Revivalism. One of the most effective outcomes of this discourse was its radical intervention in architectural theory, education, and practice, through which the existing interconnected triad of spatial realms changed completely. This period typically illustrated that more than the architectural intelligentsia, political authority had power over the representation of space and used it to control the influence of attendant symbols and images.
The political authority’s involvement in architecture caused the perception of another important realm of space: spatial practice, which is about how people experience, use, or observe social space in everyday life. It was not acceptable to the republicans that citizens absorb the retrospective symbols transmitted by the politics of the revivalist architectural style. Instead, society should practice revolutionary space in harmony with the revolutionary project of creating a modern society. This path resulted in transforming the representations of Ottoman arches into Western, pure, cubic forms, under the belief that abstract representations of space would create the appropriate social realm in the lived experience. This aim was the republicans’ realization of space as a social subject.
Despite its relatively tertiary conception during the process of spatial production, spatial practice occurs and reproduces itself through time by being shaped according to citizens’ personal relationships with that space. More than initiated and appropriated codes of political, institutional or official representations of space or representational space, the spatial practice of urban society ensures the status of spatial substance.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.