Reconceptualizing “Archetype”: A Critical Reading Of “People’s Libraries” In The Context Of Turkey’s Modernization(s)

Date

2023-5-25

Author

ERDAL, BERRAK

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“Library” is classified as a building type by its function in the literature of architectural theory. “Type” is a notion that has long been debated as a cultural and functional instrument in the discipline of architecture since it generates the means for understanding architectural space and its intellectual constructs. The notion was also exposed to the critique of oversimplification and reductionism as well as profundity, abstractness, and restrictiveness. However, due to its heterotopic characteristic that is defined by its modern identity, library space requires a more comprehensive approach to understand its complex relationship with space, knowledge, and modernity. In this dissertation, the term “archetype”, which has been infrequently used as a synonym to type but has hardly been defined, is reconceptualized to express that complexity, which provides a comprehensive understanding of space with its social, political, and cultural mechanisms. Acknowledged as sine qua non spaces for modern societies, the theorization of libraries is investigated in People’s Libraries. In the landscape of modernization(s) in Turkey, the institutionalization of “People’s Library” as an archetype dates back to the 1960s. From its emergence to the present, the transformation of its architectural spaces and reinterpreted institutional identities have been instrumentalized to reread Turkey’s modernizations. In the scope of this dissertation, the narratives of modernity are discussed by means of plural modernizations in Turkey and by examining the architectural space of these particular libraries. Therefore, being a heterotopia, library is redefined as a modern archetype, and scrutinized in the context of Turkey’s modernizations and the case of People’s Libraries.

Subject Keywords

Library, Archetype, Architectural knowledge, Modernization in Turkey, People’s Libraries

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/104759

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis