Architecture in the post: Communication and propaganda of the state via architectural-themed postage stamps of 1950s’ Turkey

Date

2024-2

Author

Ergun Kocaili, Buket

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The curiosity and study of postage stamps can be traced back to the 19th century. As the state’s official valuable papers, postage stamps had a broader reach than any other media before the advent of electronic communications, especially during the 20th century. Postage stamps are exclusive as visual sources because they provide a complete and chronological database. Architectural images presented in postage stamps are powerful miniature media that engage the central issues of architectural history, such as periods, styles, and meanings, as well as the history of ideologies and social changes. Postage stamps can narrate an image-based architectural history that transcends literacy and language limitations. When architectural-themed postage stamps from a specific period are analyzed together with their multi-contexts, they present a deep, layered, and comprehensive visual atlas of the architectural memory that is desired, produced, and intended to be remembered by the state. Despite the increasing interest in visual culture and the development of related methodologies in historiography, architectural-themed postage stamps as carriers of visual information about architectural productions and the built environment have yet to be comprehensively studied in the context of architectural history in Turkey. This noteworthy gap in scholarship calls for a closer examination of postage stamps as a valuable source for understanding the intersection of architecture and visual culture in Turkey. This study examines how and which architectural productions and built environments in Turkey were presented in postage stamps in the 1950s. Accordingly, the study evaluates the state represented and commemorated architecture as captured in postage stamps issued during the Democrat Party era.

Subject Keywords

Postage Stamps, State Propaganda, Representation, Commemoration, 1950s’ Turkey

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/108765

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis