Change as an agent for architectural conservation: A non-anthropocentric conceptual framework for managing change

Date

2025-3-6

Author

Acar, Melih Emre

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This thesis, in essence, is concerned with the value judgements that shape architectural conservation decisions and interventions. In line with the recent critical scholarship claiming that the prevailing value judgements or, as more popularly named the official heritage discourse, that is said to both produce and is produced by human-centered, post Enlightenment understanding of the world, this study aims to come up with an alternative non-anthropocentric conceptual framework to validate more sustainable, responsive and inclusive attitudes towards architectural heritage and its perpetual change. In order to develop the framework, this study conducts an inquiry into the phenomenon of change, dwelling on one of the most basic and popular definitions of conservation as management of change. It is a fundamental as well as controversial concept for conservation because of both engendering and endangering heritage. A mixed methodical approach is employed throughout the study. After portraying the situational relationship between change and conservation, it visits three different temporal ontologies to reach a broader understanding of how things change and then, with the insights from these readings, fairy chimneys of Cappadocia are wandered through, and selected samples to comprehend their transformation processes. In the end, rather than a ready made, overarching conservation method, a conceptual framework is proposed that may facilitate a new set of approaches to overcome the contemporary ethical, political and environmental problems where the existing ones fall short. Ultimately, the aim of dissertation is not to favor change over conservation but to contribute to heritage practice by advocating for a posthuman language of change that transcends the linear and homogenous temporal frameworks of modernity, fostering a more enchanted experience of heritage sites.

Subject Keywords

Architectural conservation, Change, Temporality, Ontology, Posthumanism

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/114191

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis