Redefining Modernism: The Conversion of the Ankara Exhibition Hall into the Turkish State Opera

The Beginnings: Locating the Opera in the City

After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the endeavors of social and technological modernization in the country accelerated and grew into an overall modernization project. This project, which accompanied the transition from monarchy to secular nation-state, consisted of various tools and policies. One major tool among these was architecture, which was attributed the mission of representing the state’s new national identity. The instrumentalization of architecture by the state involved the replacement of the revivalist architecture of the late Ottoman era with a modernist one. Parallel to this development, the discipline of city planning was introduced to the young republic as a further modernization policy. ³ As with the reformation of the architectural culture, city planning was considered by the state as a tool for social transformation and identity politics. ⁴ Beginning with the late 1920s, architects and city planners from Europe—from German-speaking countries in particular—were invited to the young republic to reform the practice and education of architecture and city planning according to modernist principles. These experts, including world-renowned names such as Hans Poelzig, Bruno Taut, and Ernst Egli, mainly consisted of individuals of Jewish descent and political exiles who emigrated from their home countries due to the national socialist regime in Germany. ⁵ Some of them, on the other hand, emigrated to Turkey primarily by reason of the extensive and generous commissions they received from the Turkish government, while their working and living conditions had been influenced negatively by the repercussions of the war in Europe. ⁶ From the late 1920s onward, they shaped the built environment of the country through their own building and planning practices as well as their work as professors, consultants, and jury members of architectural competitions. ⁷

One of the first cities to be transformed within the framework of the Kemalist modernization project was the City of Ankara. Shortly before the foundation of the republic, the political leaders of Turkey had proclaimed Ankara as the new capital of the country, ending Istanbul’s nearly 1600-year-old history as the capital of three different empires. One of the major intentions behind this radical relocation was to detach from the country’s Ottoman past. Ankara, as the headquarters of the Turkish War of Liberation, was conceived as the birthplace of the new republic. In contrast to old cosmopolitan Istanbul, Ankara was to be constructed as a modern city in the heart of the national territory. With its physical and institutional structures and the modern way of living facilitated by these, the city was to serve as a model for the development of further urban environments. ⁸

The first major step toward the planning of the new capital was the commissioning of German city planner Carl Christoph Lörcher with a master plan for Ankara in 1924. ⁹ After Lörcher’s plan was only partially implemented, ¹⁰ in 1927 the local government organized an invitation-only competition for a new city plan for the capital. ¹¹ The invited planners were German Hermann Jansen and Joseph Brix, and French Léon Jaussely. ¹² The winning design among the three contributions was the masterplan by Jansen, which was based on the conservation of the ancient citadel and the generation of a new city concentrically arranged around to the historic core. ¹³ A remarkable aspect of this masterplan was the location it proposed for an opera house. In the version of 1933, the opera was situated on the Republic Avenue (Cumhuriyet Caddesi), the north-south artery of the city, and faced the so-called Opera Square. Furthermore, the opera house was contemplated in direct connection to the Youth Park (Gençlik Parkı), a public park conceived as the recreational heart of the capital. The main axis of the Youth Park spanned between the central train station and the opera house, and was marked by a monumental cascade constituting the transition to the Opera Square (Figure 1). ¹⁴ Its positioning on one of the main arteries of the city and conception as the ending point of a significant pedestrian axis were features underlining the importance of the opera as an urban center in the masterplan by Jansen. A notable aspect of the pedestrian way leading from the central train station to the opera building was the unimpeded vista toward the opera. Following the cascade upward, one would have a view of the Opera Square and the opera building in front, and the citadel in the background (Figure 2). In this constellation, the citadel—as the historic facet of the city ¹⁵ —constituted an aesthetic as well as symbolic backdrop for the gradually accessible opera which was featured as a state monument in the cityscape. Jansen’s positioning of the opera between the historic citadel and a public park dedicated to the future generations of the nation involved further symbolism. The opera, situated at an intermediate height between the respective parts of the city, was standing between the past and the future of the nation. Although Jansen’s design for the Youth Park was elaborated until the level of construction planning, it was not realized due to political conflicts between the commissioning parties. ¹⁶ Nevertheless, it set the framework for the implemented design by French city planner Théodore Leveau, which entailed the same axial connection between the train station, the cascade, and the opera as in the design by Jansen. ¹⁷

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Figure 1.

Hermann Jansen. Youth Park, Ankara, 1928-1935. Site plan. Main axis of the park connects the train station in the west with the opera house in the east.

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Figure 2.

Hermann Jansen. Youth Park, Ankara, 1928-1935. Perspective drawing showing the eastern part of the park and its connection to the Opera Square.

Exhibiting Modernism and Progress

Beside the connection to the opera house, Jansen’s masterplan for Ankara proposed a further link between the Youth Park and a public building of representative character. According to the masterplan, the southeast corner of the Youth Park was reserved for exhibition spaces. ¹⁸ The design of a building along the prestigious Republic Avenue to house these spaces was instigated by the so-called Economics and Savings Community (İktisat ve Tasarruf Cemiyeti) which was founded after the economic depression of 1929. ¹⁹ Acting in compliance with the state’s adoption of an economic strategy toward domestic production, the primary objective of the Economics and Savings Community was to promote the consumption of domestic goods. ²⁰ In 1933, the community organized an international architectural competition for the design of an exhibition hall for the capital. ²¹ This building was envisaged as a place where domestic products would be exhibited and would reach broader society. ²² The political objective here was to inform the citizens—who were supposed to carry responsibility for the technological and artistic advancement of the country—about the developments they had a share in. In other words, the exhibition hall was conceived as a place for propaganda and nation building. ²³ In an article in the newspaper Hakimiyet-i Milliye, a propaganda tool of the Kemalist regime, the purpose of the exhibition hall was formulated as follows: “We want this building to be a vibrant hub of inspiration, education and culture for broad masses of the population.” ²⁴

In the context of the Early Republican architectural production of the 1930s, it was common that foreign architects received direct commissions for architectural designs. Under these circumstances, the organization of an architectural competition for the design of the Ankara Exhibition Hall, instead of a direct commissioning, was a noteworthy act. ²⁵ A further remarkable aspect regarding the tendering process was a statement in the competition brief. Here, it was clearly communicated that the building should be designed “in the style of modern architecture.” ²⁶ The winning project among twenty-six competition contributions was the design by Turkish architect Şevki Balmumcu (Figure 3). ²⁷ The fact that the project of a Turkish architect was selected from international designs—despite the domination of foreign architects in the country—was a highly celebrated incident. ²⁸ In the newspaper Hakimiyet-i Milliye, the success of Balmumcu was described with the following words:

While looking at this building, another aspect for us to be delighted about and be proud of is that the building was constructed after the project of a young Turkish architect and under his supervision . . . The building demonstrates the talent and success of the young Turk, who promises an artistic future. ²⁹

In a period characterized by the endeavors for national production, the commissioning of a Turkish architect for a building to display domestic products must have been, as İlhan Tekeli argues, more than a coincidence. ³⁰

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Figure 3.

Şevki Balmumcu. Exhibition Hall, Ankara, 1933-1934. Exterior view.

On September 30, 1934 the opening ceremony of the Ankara Exhibition Hall took place with the participation of the prime minister, several other ministers, congressmen, ambassadors, and journalists. ³¹ The profile of the guests of the highly celebrated opening was an indication of the political prominence attributed to the building. The newly opened building later housed exhibitions from the fields of the fine arts, hygiene, industry, and agriculture. ³² The architectural language of the building, moreover, was in analogy with the character of the exhibitions taking place in it. With its chimney-like tower, its longitudinal exhibition space resembling a factory hall, and the horizontal strip windows marking this space, the building was the epitome of modernist aesthetics in the Early Republic (Figures 4 and 5). ³³ Other characteristics constituting the modernist language of the building were the composition of horizontal and vertical masses and openings, the rounded ends of the longitudinal body, white unornamented surfaces as well as the clear spatial scheme organized around an asymmetrical entrance (Figure 6). With all these modernist architectural properties, the building was claimed to fit the global standards of beauty. In a Turkish newspaper article from the year 1934, the building was described as a “jewel of art, of not only Ankara but of the entire world, worthy of being called beautiful.” ³⁴

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Figure 4.

Şevki Balmumcu. Exhibition Hall, Ankara, 1933-1934. Exterior view.

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Figure 5.

Şevki Balmumcu. Exhibition Hall, Ankara, 1933-1934. Interior view.

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Figure 6.

Şevki Balmumcu. Exhibition Hall, Ankara, 1933-1934. Floor plan.

On the Search for a Music Venue

A month after the opening of the Ankara Exhibition Hall, the annual opening of the Turkish Parliament took place. ³⁵ Although not an event directly related to arts or architecture, the opening of the parliament included the topic of the arts as part of its agenda. In his opening speech President Atatürk addressed the topic with the following words:

Dear Friends! I know how much you wish for the progression of our nation’s youth in all fields of the fine arts. This is being realized. However, among all, the field which has to be promoted most immediately is the field of Turkish music. The measure for a nation’s degree of transformation is the extent to which it accepts and internalizes the reform in music. . . . What has to be done is to collect high-value pieces of music and sayings, which express deep national feelings and ideas, and embroider them according to the contemporary principles of music as soon as possible. Only then can national Turkish music rise and take its place in universal music. ³⁶

As this quote reveals, Atatürk and the Early Republican elite considered the promotion of the fine arts as a necessity for social modernization. The reformation of the national music culture was seen as the most important step of this progression, which was supposed to enable the integration into the Western world. The key approach of this so-called music reform was the combination of elements of Turkish folk music with the methodology of classical music, to create a polyphonic music conforming to the Western taste. ³⁷ This state-run project went hand in hand with the establishment of a national theater and opera culture. Beginning with the early 1930s, the young state took several actions for the establishments in this field, including the development of legislation and administrative structures as well as the invitation of music and theater experts from Europe. These experts, stage director Carl Ebert and composer Paul Hindemith in particular, laid the foundations of the administrative as well as educational institutions for the performing arts and raised a new generation of musicians and actors. ³⁸ As with architecture and city planning, Ankara was the city to pioneer the developments in the field of performing arts and constituted a model for the establishments in other cities of the country.

In 1940, four years after the opening of the State Conservatory in Ankara, ³⁹ the so-called Tatbikat Sahnesi (transl.: practice stage) was established under the leadership of Carl Ebert as a practice and performance platform for the students of the conservatory. ⁴⁰ To provide a physical space for the Tatbikat Sahnesi, the renovation of a theater hall in the Evkaf Apartmanı ⁴¹ —an apartment block constructed in 1928 by Kemalettin Bey—was induced in the early 1940s. ⁴² However, the renovation works could be finished as late as 1947 and until then, the multipurpose hall of the People’s House (Halkevi) in Ankara served as the stage for the republic’s emerging musicians and actors. ⁴³ In the late-1940s, when the first-year students of the State Conservatory had already graduated, ⁴⁴ the need for a building specifically designed as a performance venue had reached a striking level—which forced the government to act. ⁴⁵ Since the financial circumstances of the country at that time did not allow the construction of such a building, the government devised the solution of transforming the Ankara Exhibition Hall into an opera house. ⁴⁶ In 1948, the exhibition hall was converted into an opera, and the site designated for an opera building by Jansen remained unbuilt. ⁴⁷ The conversion was realized by German architect Paul Bonatz, who had been working as a consultant for the Turkish Ministry of Education since 1943 and had been assigned as a professor of the Technical University of Istanbul in 1946. ⁴⁸ Bonatz, as one of the main representatives of the Stuttgarter Schule characterized by an oppositional stance toward the International Style, ⁴⁹ turned the modernist aesthetic of the building into a classicistic one by demolishing the tower, breaking down the horizontal band of windows, adding colonnades to the building front, and inserting cornices to the roof (Figures 7 and 8). His stylistic interventions in the interior included the adoption of classicistic components such as colonnades, vaults, coffers, moldings, and a double-flight staircase (Figure 9). Another striking approach in Bonatz’s conversion was his extensive use of decorative elements including murals and chandeliers (Figure 10). Although in terms of space formation and the choice of architectural components, Bonatz’s classicist approach was primarily reflective of a Western understanding of (neo)classicism; his detailing revealed the attempt of a local appropriation of an international pattern. The most explicit example of this attempt is his use of Seljuk-Ottoman orders and details in the colonnades he added to the main façade, including the Muqarnas capitals in the entrance portico (Figure 11). ⁵⁰

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Figure 7.

Paul Bonatz. State Opera, Ankara, 1946-1948. Floor plan.

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Figure 8.

Paul Bonatz. State Opera, Ankara, 1946-1948. Exterior view.

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Figure 9.

Paul Bonatz. State Opera, Ankara, 1946-1948. Foyer. Entranceway to the auditorium.

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Figure 10.

Paul Bonatz. State Opera, Ankara, 1946-1948. Foyer. View on the cloakroom in the lower floor and the chamber music hall in the upper floor.

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Figure 11.

Paul Bonatz. State Opera, Ankara, 1946-1948. Exterior view.

The fact that an iconic building as the Ankara Exhibition Hall underwent the described changes raises the question of which circumstances brought about this radical transformation. This question can be posed from two different perspectives: first concerning the change in function and second concerning the change in architectural language. In both cases, the answer relates to the transformation of cultural politics in the Early Republic, since both the Ankara Exhibition Hall and the State Opera were instrumentalized within the framework of the Kemalist modernization project. This Western-oriented modernization went hand in hand with the abolishment of the religious and ethnic bonds which had held the Ottoman society together and their replacement by nationalistic bonds. ⁵¹ Cultural buildings were to provide the physical space in which these bonds were to be fortified. Nevertheless, the definition of “the national” in Early Republican Turkey was not a stable one. The remodification of this definition over decades brought about the conditions that prepared the shift from the instrumentalization of one type of a cultural building to the other, that is, the conversion of the Ankara Exhibition Hall into the State Opera.

Cultural Politics in Transformation

According to Uğur Tanyeli, the Turkish nationalist discourse of the 1930s involved the vision of a social interdependency model, by means of which the citizens would feel responsible for the present and future of the nation they belong to. ⁵² As part of this approach, Tanyeli argues, the Ankara Exhibition Hall was conceived as a place in which the citizens would be informed about the technological and artistic developments in the country, and this process of information would let the individuals feel themselves as actors in the country’s “story of transformation.” ⁵³ This focus on the present as well as the future of the country went hand in hand with the ignorance of its past—that is the Ottoman heritage. However, after almost two decades of radical endeavors for cutting ties with the imperial past, the need for a stronger justification for the state’s aspired Westernized identity—a justification that went beyond expressing what the state was “not”—became evident. The death of the state’s founding father—who was also the role model of the Westernized Turkish citizen—moreover contributed to this identity crisis to a significant extent. As a reaction to this crisis, a new current in cultural politics emerged in the country during the early 1940s. In this period, the establishments in the field of high culture—whose seeds were planted already in the 1930s—intensified, and high culture became a primary means for social transformation and identity construction. The bonds holding society together were no longer supposed to rely on social interdependency but on shared aesthetic and artistic values that were in line with the Western ideal of culture.

The theoretical basis for the Early Republican state’s instrumentalization of high culture was formed by the assumption that it was possible to be part of Western society while maintaining a national character: in other words, to be Western and national at the same time. This idea had its roots in Turkish intellectual Ziya Gökalp’s distinction between universal civilization (medeniyet) and national culture (hars), ⁵⁴ and was reflected in the aforementioned endeavors of combining the substance of Turkish folk music with the “universal” rules of classical music. Beginning with the 1940s, the movement of “Turkish Humanism” (aka “Anatolian Humanism”) led by Hasan Ali Yücel—the Turkish minister of culture of the 1940s—constituted an important resource for the state’s binary agenda of being Western and national at the same time, as it offered legitimacy for both parts of the agenda. The rhetoric of Early Republican intellectuals and statesmen following this movement suggested that Turkey had been the origin of the contemporary Western civilization, as the geography of Turkey had been the homeland of the ancient cultures from which the Western civilization had evolved. This argument would then not only serve to declare Turkey part—or even the source—of Western civilization, but also nationalize Western culture, in other words localize the global. The translation of the classics of Western literature into Turkish, and the staging of Western opera classics such as Faust and Fidelio as well as theater plays with ancient themes such as Julius Caesar and Oedipus the King were actions justified by this politico-cultural rhetoric. Furthermore, the assertion regarding shared ancient roots was supposed to legitimize the import of neoclassical elements in arts, architecture, and urban design. ⁵⁵

Among the different domains of high culture that were promoted within the framework of the politico-cultural operations of the 1940s, opera was considered as one of the most powerful tools for social engineering. The following words of Hasan Ali Yücel from his talk at the opening ceremony of the State Conservatory in 1941 demonstrate the political role attributed to opera in an explicit way:

. . . in the current era, in which humanity is having one of its greatest wars . . ., the fact that we are engaged with theater and opera performances must be considered as the most powerful proof of the significance we attribute to the cause of the fine arts. We consider the performing arts of theater and opera as a matter of civilization. That is why, in these days in which we are making every kind of sacrifice for the defense of our dear country, we are not interrupting the development of the performing arts, but accelerating it. ⁵⁶

The political significance attached to opera—manifested in the words of Yücel—was, nevertheless, not unique to Early Republican Turkey. It followed a long history of political instrumentalization, which dated back to the emergence of the art form in sixteenth-century Italy and continued its evolution throughout the following centuries in different geographic contexts. ⁵⁷ Opera as the culmination of various elements from different fields of the arts—such as music, theater, dance, painting, and architecture—constituted a multilayered agent to represent political aspirations and ideals. ⁵⁸ Like in all the other cultural contexts this instrumentalization took place, in Early Republican Turkey opera performances were—with the words of Cristoforo Ivanovich—“objects of refined politics.” ⁵⁹

Against this backdrop, opera architecture, as the embodiment of the Gesamtkunstwerk of opera, was a crucial field in the architectural production of the Early Republic. Here, opera houses were not only to provide physical space for opera performances but also to reflect the country’s new Westernized identity through their architecture and positioning in the urban context—an approach whose foundations were already laid in the 1930s with the aforementioned city plan by Jansen. Furthermore, in the young republic, in which religious bonds were to be replaced by national bonds, religious rituals were meant to be superseded by the ritualistic acts linked to the inhabitance of the opera house before, during, and after the performances, including the approach to the building as well as the circulation and inhabitance patterns prescribed for the audiences. In this respect, opera houses constituted alternatives to religious buildings, which had been the most important urban centers and places of public gathering in the Ottoman era. Consequently, by the mid-1940s the need for an exhibition hall in Ankara as a place for propaganda and social transformation no longer existed. On the other hand, the need for an opera house, in and through which the new cultural ideal of the Republic would be presented, was rising. ⁶⁰

Toward a Conservative Modernism

In this politico-cultural context, the state’s commissioning of Bonatz for the conversion instead of Balmumcu—as the architect of the original building—received harsh criticism from circles of Turkish architects. ⁶¹ This criticism, however, was directed toward Bonatz rather than to the commissioners, blaming the architect and Turkish architects who supported him for acting against professional morals. ⁶² Besides the discussions concerning the ethics of the conversion, another highly disputed issue was the “Turkishness” of the building. In his autobiography from 1950, Bonatz described the State Opera as a building “that could not stand anywhere and everywhere in the world, but was created out of the atmosphere of the country, could only stand in Turkey and belonged to its soil.” ⁶³ However, Bonatz did not elaborate on the architectural characteristics constituting this “Turkishness.” Neither the Seljuk-Ottoman details the architect integrated into his design nor the chandeliers which he had purchased in person and described to be in “Turkish style” ⁶⁴ seem from the present perspective to be sufficient for legitimizing his argument. On the contrary, considering the aforementioned correlation between the nationalization of the “Western” and the import of classicist design vocabulary, the classicist and monumentalist elements of Bonatz’s design were possibly supposed to contribute to the building’s Turkish character.

The search for a national Turkish architecture was not only thematized in Bonatz’s discourse; it was a current theme in the Turkish architectural discourse of the 1940s. ⁶⁵ Interestingly, the most important protagonists of the so-called “national style” of this era were foreign architects. Regarding this, Turkish architect Adnan Kuruyazıcı asked “How can foreigners become »national« in three months when an architect who lives here all his life is not?” ⁶⁶ This question associates with the aforementioned “global vs. local” and “modern vs. national” ⁶⁷ dichotomies and raises further questions such as “Was Balmumcu’s architecture a national one?” or “Can Bonatz be considered as a modernist architect?” Bonatz quotes in his autobiography Lady Kelly—the wife of a British minister—who described the architectural language of the State Opera as “the unification of everything modern with the Turkish soul.” ⁶⁸ In a German journal article, furthermore, the State Opera was described with the following words:

Though the new opera in Ankara is modern . . ., it is definitely Turkish; however, it can only be the work of Bonatz. And incidentally—the following can by no means be said too loudly—it is really beautiful, simply beautiful! ⁶⁹

As these words demonstrate, the modernist understanding of aesthetic value in the early 1930s had changed by the late 1940s. While the Ankara Exhibition Hall had been praised by Turkish circles for conforming to the global standards of beauty, the beauty of the State Opera was set in correlation with its Turkishness by a foreign viewer. This change in aesthetic judgment in mid–twentieth century, however, was not limited to Turkey. In the postwar era, concepts such as beauty and ornamentation—which could “by no means be said too loudly” before—as well as the use of historical design vocabulary were coming to the fore of discussions on modern architecture in Europe and the United States. The sixth CIAM Congress in 1947, remarkably, was the first CIAM Congress to address the relationship of modern architecture to aesthetics, while in the seventh CIAM Congress in 1949, the question of aesthetics in architecture gave rise to ardent discussions. ⁷⁰ Furthermore, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, who declared in his book The International Style 1932 the prohibition of arbitrary ornamentation as one of the main principles of modern architecture, reflected in 1951 on this statement in the reissue of his book by writing that he now would omit the reference to the ornamental, since it was rather a question of taste than a principle question. ⁷¹ Siegfried Giedion, similarly, discussed in the reissue of his book Space, Time and Architecture from 1965 the adaptation of historical design elements in the architecture of the 1960s, referring to it as a “refined fashion” that “flirts with the past.” ⁷² In early 1950s, Bonatz as well actively contributed to the addressed discussions in the context of the Darmstädter Gespräche (transl.: Darmstadt Talks). In 1951, Bonatz was—together with the renowned architects Walter Gropius and Hans Scharoun—invited to participate in the Darmstädter Gespräch titled “Human and Space” (orig. Mensch und Raum) and was asked to deliver an architectural design for the City of Darmstadt to be exhibited within the framework of the event. ⁷³ Interestingly, Bonatz was requested to design a music hall, which he later described to be in the style of “the classical.” ⁷⁴ This design carried obvious references to Bonatz’s design for the State Opera in Ankara, which manifested architectural knowledge transfer in two directions. The architectural knowledge and expertise that Bonatz imported to young Turkey was shaped by the architect’s experience in the country and was exported back to the West. ⁷⁵

Remembering an Era

Having discussed the conversion of the Ankara Exhibition Hall into the Turkish State Opera as an architectural transformation, it is important to note that the conversion was not only an intervention in the architectural scale but also affected the urban context of the building in terms of accessibility and urban constellation. The Ankara Exhibition Hall, as a building with the main function of educating the masses, was in architectural and social terms a building with no thresholds. However, after the conversion—with the layers added to the building front, the modifications in the floor plan, and the changed entrance situation—the access to the building became more gradual and indirect. This change in accessibility conformed to the building’s new elitist image, which was a result of its new function and architectural language. The building’s classicist and monumentalist architectural language could also be considered as a strategy to compensate the loss of the representative location proposed for the opera in the masterplan by Jansen. The monumentality inherent in the location at the eastern end of the Youth Park was tried to be generated through stylistic interferences. Moreover, the fact that the opera house was not built on the site that was contemplated for it rendered the pedestrian axis connecting the train station with the Opera Square meaningless. The site originally designated for the opera served for decades as a huge parking lot, until the current government initiated the construction of a mosque on the property in 2013. ⁷⁶ Since 2017, the main pedestrian axis of the Youth Park connects the train station with the new mosque, which constitutes a contrast—and maybe a reaction—to the Early Republican introduction of opera houses as urban centers and landmarks to be alternatives to mosques. This recent development added hereby a new layer to the political and architectural manifestations around the story of the Turkish State Opera.

The conversion process of the Ankara Exhibition Hall into the Turkish State Opera is the epitome of the constant adaptations in the understanding of “modernism” and “the national” in Early Republican Turkey. It is also characterized by the redefinition of architectural value, since both buildings, the Exhibition Hall and the State Opera, were symbolic products of radical reforms in the architectural culture of the country. In this context, Sibel Bozdoğan and Esra Akcan define Bonatz’s conversion of the Ankara Exhibition Hall as “a monument to how modern Turkish architecture erased (and continues to erase) its own collective memory and the traces of its own recent history along the way.” ⁷⁷ In this regard, the Turkish State Opera—as the monument of political, economic, urban, and architectural transformations in the Early Republic—is a monument of “forgetting” as well. Whether the building will survive Turkey’s recurrent process of “rewriting memory” remains, nevertheless, to be seen.