• 2 Serra Akboy-İlk, Architectural Documentation: Built Environment, Modernization, and Turkish Nation (...)

3After Atatürk, the secular appraisal of the Turkish History Thesis replaced a religious-ethnic reading of the built heritage. The monuments associated with an Islamic past came to be the locus of Turkish identity and constituted the basis for a new collective memory to be inculcated in the citizens of modern Turkey. Despite the conflicting ideologies of the secular-ethnic politics of the Turkish History Thesis and the religious-ethnic grounds of Islamification, the common thread remained the search for the soul of Turkish architecture.2 Both sides maintained that Turkish architecture reflected a national spirit of architectural forms, which was distinct from Byzantine and other schools of Islamic architecture (for example Arab, Moorish, or Persian). From the early civilizations of Central Asia to the frontiers of Seljuk Anatolia and to the Ottoman Istanbul, the characteristics of Turkish architecture became a touchstone for the nation’s continuous experience.

• 3 For Istanbul (Turkey), Koç University, Suna Kıraç Library Special Collections and Archives, see, U (...)

4All native architect-scholars conducted archival building documentation inside the rhetorical appeal of Turkish architecture. In different ways, their drawings are evidence of the cultural consciousness of the time. First, the drafted lines shaped repairs, restoration, and curatorial management of historic properties. Second, the visual materials played a prominent part in the state-sponsored books, brochures, exhibitions, journals, and monographs. Delineated with miscellaneous mediums including graph paper, ink, pen, pencil, and tracing paper, today some of these drawings are located in private and public collections including Suna Kıraç Library Special Collections and Archives at Koç University and archives of architecture and design at SALT Research. Both institutions have digitized their archival materials and have made them accessible from their websites.3

• 4 Sibel Bozdoğan and Gülru Necipoğlu, “Preface: Entangled Discourses: Scrutinizing Orientalist and (...)
• 5 Sibel Bozdoğan, “Reading Ottoman Architecture Through Modernist Lenses: Nationalist Historiography (...)
• 6 Idem, Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic, Seattle, (...)
• 7 Sibel Bozdoğan and Esra Akcan, Turkey, London: Reaktion Books, 2012 (Modern Architectures in Histo (...)

5Sibel Bozdoğan and Gülru Necipoğlu4 point out that architectural surveys conducted in the early republic did not reflect the historical and sociocultural settings of architecture. Instead, these early republican architects were interested in documenting those aspects of the built heritage that supported a national narrative. Their focus included a formal appraisal of architectural historiography, through comparative analyses of building typologies and morphologies. For Bozdoğan, early republican scholars sought to reconcile the nationalist historiography of architecture with modernist practice.5 Architectural surveys of historic properties served to identify the modern qualities inherent to Turkish architecture. Elements of historic architecture were read through modern forms, including volumetric masses, flat roofs, and horizontal window bands.6 This nationalist appraisal culminated in a monolithic reading.7 In reality, Ottoman architecture was the cultural product of a rich array of ethnic and religious groups, such as Alevis, Arabs, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, and Turks. Republican marginalization of this cultural diversity under the name “Turkish” obscured the more cosmopolitan character of the Ottoman heritage. Overall, the surveys compiled in the early years of the republic contributed to the idea of a continuous lineage of “Turkish” architecture, and any cultural overlap between different societies was denied or unacknowledged.

• 8 Kemal Altan, “Bizans Eserleri Üzerinde Türk Mimarlarının İşleri,” Arkitekt, vol. 8, no. 68, 1936, (...)

8The cultural encounter between the Turks and the Byzantines became a recurring theme in Altan’s texts. The defining historic moments of the Turkish nation entailed (a) the defeat of the Byzantines in the Battle of Malazgirt (Manzikert) in 1071, which prompted Seljuk Turks to begin pouring into Anatolia to make it their homeland, and (b) the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) in 1453, which sealed the end of the Byzantine Empire. For Altan, the Turkish nation indisputably formed a more glorious civilization than the Byzantines. Turkish people brought an innovative vision for the protection of arts into being. They willingly consecrated the ancient works of the Byzantines next to the pure forms of Turks. The Byzantine architectural “mementos were carved with the beauty of the Turkish spirit,”8 Altan wrote.

• 9 Sultan Mahmud I (r.1730-1754) commissioned a public fountain, elementary school, and a soup kitche (...)
• 10 Kemal Altan, “Ayasofya Etrafında Türk San’at Ekleri,” Arkitekt, vol. 9, no. 57, 1935, p. 264-265.

9Despite his idealistic commitment to the pure Turkish forms, Altan’s documentation work was distinguished by his efforts to portray the layered historic architecture as a whole. For example, commenting on Istanbul’s Ayasofya complex (Hagia Sophia), which had been expanded with additions and modifications over the centuries, Altan stated that Constantinople’s once-derelict Hagia Sophia had flourished aesthetically and structurally after its conversion to a mosque under the Ottoman rule. Turkish architects reinforced the structure and introduced alterations, including the addition of the minarets and external buttresses, along with the calibration of the uneven dome and the marble surfaces. For Altan, the Turks had infused the former cathedral with new energy, surpassing the experimental configuration of the Byzantines. Altan read Ayasofya with the buildings added in the 1700s9 as a complex, the totality of which had to be conserved. To promote official interest in the conservation effort, Altan made measured drawings of individual buildings and published his illustrations in periodicals.10

• 11 Idem, “Siyaveş Paşa Kasrı,” Arkitekt, vol. 9, no. 57, 1935, p. 268-269.
• 12 Idem, “Mimari Kıymeti olan Binalarımız: Sinan’in Siyavuş Paşaya Yaptığı Kasır,” Zaman, May 25, 193 (...)

10In 1935, Altan wrote about the duty to save Istanbul’s 16^th-century Siyavuş Pasha Pavilion, designed by Architect Sinan (1489–1588). Sinan, the prolific master builder and engineer serving the Ottoman court, became a national hero for the republicans. He was celebrated for perfecting the pure building forms of Turks without foreign influence. Located on the outskirts of the city and being used as a warehouse, the Siyavuş Pasha Pavilion was in a derelict condition.11 To prioritize its repair and upkeep, Altan published his measured drawings in the daily newspapers. Altan noted that it was Ali Saim Ülgen, at the time a student-architect at the Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi (Academy of Fine Arts, today Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University), who initiated the formal interest in the pavilion. 12 Enrolled at the Academy’s Millî Mimari Semineri (National Architecture Seminar), Ülgen compiled measured drawings (figs. 1-2) and a preliminary report on the historic building, which is a rare example of residential architecture designed by Sinan. After Altan came across Ülgen’s drawings at the student exhibition at the Academy, the tenured architect embarked his own documentation campaign of the historic pavilion.

• 13 Serra Akboy-İlk, “Ali Saim Ülgen: Building a Historiography of Turkish Architecture,” Turkish Hist (...)

11Ali Saim Ülgen, a government employee, restoration architect, and historian, was an instrumental persona in the institutionalization of the historic preservation policies in Turkey. Ülgen worked at the Millî Eğitim Bakanlığı (Ministry of Education) and the Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü (General Directorate of Foundations), and volunteered in various organizations promoting the documentation and restoration of historic architecture. After his graduation from the Academy, Ülgen was awarded a state fellowship to study architecture-archeology in Europe. A brainchild of Atatürk, this fellowship was designed to provide Turkish architects with formal training in archeology. After completing the program, the grantee was under an obligation to apply his or her newly learned skills in Turkey. Upon his return, Ülgen began working in state agencies and coordinating a nationwide historic preservation program.13

• 14 Afet İnan, “Büyük Türk Mimarı Sinan'ın 367. Yıldönümü Münasebetiyle Türk Tarih Kurumu'nun Sinan ha (...)
• 15 Ali Saim Ülgen, Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu and Emre Madran, The Buildings of Mimar Sinan (Mimar Sinan (...)

12Ülgen’s official career in building documentation began in 1935, when the Türk Tarih Kurumu (Turkish Historical Society, TTK) appointed him, then a student-architect at the Academy, to document the works of Sinan.14 TTK was one of the state institutions supported by Atatürk to conduct research on the history of the Turks. Until his untimely passing at the age-of-fifty, Ülgen unceasingly traveled around Turkey compiling measured drawings of Sinan’s oeuvre (fig. 3). Ülgen’s monograph could not be completed until 1989, when scholars Emre Madran and Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu catalogued the drawings. The TTK published the book, entitled The Buildings of Mimar Sinan (Mimar Sinan Yapıları), which consists of two volumes of measured drawings.15

• 16 Ali Saim Ülgen, “Bodrum Camii ile ilgili bazı bilgilerin bulunduğu doküman,” Cahide Tamer Histori (...)
• 17 Ibid.; Ali Saim Ülgen, “1950 yılı bütçesinden İstanbul fethinin 500üncü yıldönümü dolayıs (...)
• 18 Idem, “Türkiye'deki eski eserlerin durumu ve restorasyon çalışmaları hakkında yazışma ve raporlar (...)

13Ülgen reasoned in terms of a cluster of recombinant traits that fit varied cultural products, rather than a set of rigid classifications. For instance, Ülgen defined Byzantine architectural works as historic landmarks, which had to be safeguarded for future generations.16 He deplored the dire condition of the Byzantine architecture in Istanbul, and wrote a series of reports to secure protection and maintenance of the Byzantine buildings.17 Documentation was integral to his efforts; in the mid-1940s he tasked a colleague at the Ministry of Education to make measured drawings of the Byzantine buildings.18

• 19 Idem, “Türkleşmis bir Bizans Abidesi, Ayasofya,” Ali Saim Ülgen Archive, Istanbul (Turkey), SALT (...)
• 20 Ibid.
• 21 Idem, “İznik’te Türk Eserleri,” Vakıflar Dergisi, vol. 1, 1938, p. 53-69, 53.

14To justify the upkeep of Byzantine works despite the meager state budget for historic preservation, Ülgen contrived intriguing narratives. In many cases, Ülgen defended the “Turkishness” of the Byzantine architecture to secure grants for documentation, research, and repairs.19 For example, Ülgen defined Istanbul’s Ayasofya as a “Turkified monument” due to its architectural transformation under the Ottoman rule.20 Likewise, Ülgen categorized the Ayasofya Mosque in İznik (Nicaea) as the product of Turkish artistry. He highlighted its makeover at the hands of Turkish architects: the additions of minbar, minaret, widened interior arches, and the repairs orchestrated by Sinan (fig. 4). Due to its notable history from the Byzantine times to the classical age of Sinan, Ülgen emphasized the obligation to restore the Ayasofya Mosque. He published his measured drawings of the structure, which was in ruins at the time, in 1938.21

• 22 Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi, “Büyük Emanet,” in Makaleler, İstanbul: İstanbul Fetih Cemiyeti, 1985, p. 4 (...)
• 23 Ibid., p. 407.

16Ayverdi’s reasoning in archival building documentation aligned with that of his professional peers, who assigned the highest priority to documenting historic properties of national significance. However, his motive for documenting Ottoman architecture differed. His interest in building documentation was a reaction against the nation-state’s outright hostility to Ottoman culture.22 Ayverdi criticized the mistreatment of Ottoman monuments and other cultural achievements in the dizzying pace of revolutionary modernization. He wrote, “The music, language, literature, style, and faith of the nation have been interfered with. All sacred affinities, from mosques to dwellings, have been scorned. Then, the massacre of monuments began.”23

• 24 Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi, “Anadolu Medeniyeti Masalı,” in Makaleler, İstanbul: İstanbul Fetih Cemiyet (...)
• 25 Ibid., p. 373.
• 26 Ibid.

17Ayverdi confirmed the hypothesis that Turks came from the Central Asian steppes and settled in Anatolia. Yet the roots in these distant lands were of no political use, since it was impossible for the republican government to lay claim to the territories, virtually and legally.24 Instead, Ayverdi defended a theory that the Turks had civilized Anatolia and Rumelia, which encompassed the former Ottoman territories.25 Turkish architecture brought forth in this far-flung landscape then constituted material proof of the nation’s artistic creativity. Consequently, Ayverdi focused on identifying traces of Ottoman civilization in Rumelia, the former Ottoman provinces in the Balkans (fig. 5).26 He documented architectural works in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Ayverdi regretted that the architectural evidence located abroad was bound to disappear, due to political hostility against the Ottoman civilization. Documentation was essential, to capture the fingerprints of the Turkish nation’s creativity before the evidence vanished altogether.

• 27 Ibid., p. 376-377, 380-389.
• 28 Ibid., p. 388.

18Ayverdi ridiculed the concept that all the architectural landscape layered in Anatolia (Hittite, Phrygian, Lydian, Roman, or Byzantine) exhibited the building traditions of the Turkish race. Ayverdi stressed that these ancient peoples disappeared centuries ago, and only some archeological remnants attested to their existence. Turks, on the other hand, belonged to a different ethnic race who came from the East, and honored these vestiges as a memento.27 When the Turks settled in the new frontiers, they brought their own cultural, economic, and political institutions from Central Asia. The Turks’ capacity to develop autonomous architecture without imitating Byzantine building traditions, and to arrive at “the world’s only pure and genuine architecture confirms an astonishing phenomenon,” Ayverdi heralded. 28

• 29 Sedat Çetintaş, “Maruz Maldığımız Müşkilat ve Tek Çare,” in İsmail Dervișoğlu (ed.), İstanbul v (...)

19Sedat Çetintaș, a restoration architect and the founding head of the Rölöve Bürosu (Surveying Bureau), saw archival building documentation as an intellectual undertaking to obtain access to the composition of architecture and acquire an understanding of the builder’s reasoning. Çetintaș wrote, “[Architectural documentation] puts forward the mentality of [the builder] in a very detailed manner… Once the artistic identity of its creator becomes visible with the aid of [measured drawings], the stages of art history are revealed.”29

• 30 Idem, Türk Mimari Anıtları: Osmanlı Devri, İstanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1946, p. 5; Ayla Ödeka (...)

20A fervent supporter of Atatürk and his ideals regarding Turkish history, Çetintaş celebrated the commitment of the reformers to architectural documentation. In 1932, Çetintaş presented his measured drawings to Atatürk. In return, the progressive leader recognized the merit of Çetintaș’s draftsmanship and requested him to devise a timeline for making measured drawings of all the monuments in Turkey, along with an estimated budget for repairs and restoration treatments.30

• 31 Idem, “Kör Kazma,” in İsmail Dervișoğlu (ed.), İstanbul ve Mimari Yazıları, Ankara: Türk Tarih (...)
• 32 Nur Altinyildiz, “The Architectural Heritage of Istanbul and the Ideology of Preservation,” Muqarn (...)

21Çetintaș acknowledged the origins of the Turkish civilization in the Central Asian steppes, with Turkey being the latest phase.31 He turned to measured surveys of medieval Anatolia and the Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire (fig. 6), seizing the opportunities they offered for exalting the assimilative and creative powers of Turks.32 Some of his publications include Sivas Darüşşifası (1953) and Türk Mimari Anıtları: Osmanlı Devri (2 vols., 1946 and 1952).

• 33 Sedat Çetintaş, “Akademi Sergisinde Millî Mimari,” in İsmail Dervișoğlu (ed.), İstanbul ve Mima (...)

22To this end, Çetintaș emphasized the study of the pure and authentic building forms of the Turks. Çetintaş warned that teaching materials for “corrupt” 19^th-century Ottoman architecture should be excluded from the curriculum at the Academy. Concerning a student exhibition in 1942, Çetintaş repudiated the documentation study of the Nizamiye Police Station, which was constructed in 1842 by a Greek master builder in the French Empire style. Çetintaş wrote these impassioned words: “the walls of the National Academy, where I would like to see art treasures from Sinan and Hayreddin [a royal architect preceding Sinan], display structures made by Christian builders fifty or sixty years ago. They are styleless and irrelevant to Turkishness. Documenting these foolish buildings is misleading to Turkish youth... This is a tragic event for the children of Great Sinan, who have matured to the republican era.”33

• 34 Engin Yenal and Süha Özkan, Sedad Eldem ile Söyleşiler, İstanbul: Literatür Yayınları, 2014, p. 3 (...)

23Sedat Hakkı Eldem, an architect and academician, opened a new chapter in building documentation that departed from the investigation of monumental architecture and leaned instead toward the analysis of vernacular examples. Eldem’s interest in building documentation was rooted in his early years (1924-1928) at the Academy when he was a student-architect. In these years, Eldem embarked a documentation campaign as a personal pursuit, strolling through the traditional neighborhoods of Istanbul and documenting the human scale in architecture.34 After graduation, between 1928 and 1930, Eldem went to Europe with a fellowship and worked at diverse architectural offices.

• 35 For the seminar, Ülgen prepared measured drawings for the Köprülü Mansion in Vezirköprü, Sam (...)
• 36 Nur Altinyildiz, “The Architectural Heritage of Istanbul,” op. cit. (note 38), p. 294.

24Eldem’s concentration on the Turkish dwelling intensified during his appointment at the Academy, where he taught the National Architecture Seminar. His students, including Ülgen, prepared measured drawings of houses and mansions across Anatolia (figs. 1-2).35 Eldem utilized the drawings to define the characteristics of the Turkish house and its geographical diffusion in the former provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Although a major portion of this drawing archive was destroyed by a fire at the Academy in 1948, Eldem’s sustained efforts resulted in several volumes of publications including Bursa Evleri (Bursa Houses, 1948), Türk Evi Plan Tipleri (The Plan Types of the Turkish House, 1954), Köşkler ve Kasırlar (A Survey of Kiosks and Pavilions, 1969) and Türk Mimari Eserleri (Works of Turkish Architecture, 1975).36

• 37 Sedat Hakkı Eldem, Türk Mimari Eserleri (Works of Turkish Architecture), İstanbul: Binbirdirek Mat (...)

25Eldem’s analysis of the Turkish house rested on the exodus embodied in the Turkish History Thesis. Eldem acknowledged the Central Asian origins of Turkish architecture and classified the Anatolian Seljuk built heritage as the predecessor of Ottoman forms. Eldem defined the emergence of the Ottoman building forms in medieval Anatolia as “a miraculous birth.” 37 Due to the disintegration of the Seljuk state, Turkish architecture was in decline, transitioning to a purely decorative stage. Byzantine architecture was also in its final stages. In contrast to the inspiration evident in earlier structural solutions, these medieval buildings resembled mockups smothered in murals. The emergence of modular, purified, and rational Ottoman forms in this relapsed design culture should be regarded as a miracle, wrote Eldem.

• 38 Early republicans were influenced by the theories of French theorist and restoration architect Eug (...)

26The role of archival building documentation in nationalist propaganda is not an unusual phenomenon. Escalating ethnic pride propelled measured surveys to the top of the republican agenda. Documentation records compiled between the 1920s and 1950s show that architects truly believed that the everlasting qualities of Turkish culture could be transferred through architectural forms.38 The historicist consciousness perpetuated ideological differences yet remained within the orbit of the rising Turkish state. For example, Altan and Ülgen, both prominent architectural theorists, integrated Anatolia’s multiple architectural pasts into their narratives. Considering the Byzantine architecture in terms of the repairs and maintenance conducted under the Ottoman rule, they celebrated the Turkish character of these architectural works and published their measured drawings to secure their protection. However, Ayverdi and Çetintaş distanced themselves from the non-Turkish layers of historic architecture. Both architects emphasized the documentation of the classical works of Ottoman architecture. Thus, Eldem’s research revolved around the diffusion of the elements of the Turkish house on the geographical borders of the Ottoman Empire.