FROM A BUILDING TO A SETTLEMENT: MODERN PUBLIC SPACES OF ANKARA UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND HISTORY-GEOGRAPHY, 1930s-1970s

Date

2026-3-27

Author

Dökmen Aykaş, Sabahat Selcan

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This study investigates the architectural and social transformation of Ankara University’s Faculty of Language and History-Geography (DTCF) as a case of Turkey’s broader modernisation process. It bridges two historical eras: the Early Republican Period (1930s–1940s) and the Post-War Period (1950s–1970s). By providing a detailed historical account of the formation of the main building of the faculty designed by German architect Bruno Taut in the 1930s, and the transformation by its enlargement as a settlement with the annexed buildings designed by Turkish architect Ersen Gömleksizoğlu in the 1960s, the research analyses how the faculty’s publicness evolved from an idealised pedagogical tool of the state into a complex inner fortress of students, shaped by the changing political, and economic as well as urban and architectural contexts of the related periods. Examining the design, construction, and use of the spaces of DTCF in relation to the political, economic and educational contexts of the related periods defined by the processes of nation-building and modernisation, and internationalisation and development respectively, the study evaluates architecture as a site of negotiation between ideology and practice as well as forms and experiences. Documenting the unwritten narratives of the faculty’s annexes and outer and interior spaces, together with its main building celebrated in literature, the aim of the study is to understand the changing modern public identity of this institution in reference to not only the urban and architectural characteristics of its spaces but also to the social interactions and networking that occurred within them.

Subject Keywords

Faculty of Language and History-Geography, Ankara, Publicness, Modernity, Modern Architecture

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/119110

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis