Displaying cultural heritage, defining collective identity: museums from the late Ottoman Empire to the early Turkish Republic

Download

index.pdf

Date

2012

Author

Gürol Öngören, Pelin

Metadata

Show full item record

Item Usage Stats

477
views

280
downloads

As the powerful visual instruments of modernity, museums have been formulated in multiple narratives under the impact of political ideologies in the modern world. The study aims to analyze the museums of different socio-political contexts of the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic comparatively by examining to what extent their buildings, collections, and displaying methods were utilized in the formation of collective identities as part of contemporary imperialist, nationalist, and modernist ideologies. The overall aim of the study is to analyze how history and cultural heritage were perceived and processed for the definition of a common cultural identity in the two different historical contexts by focusing on their display in museums. This study examines pioneering archaeological and ethnographic museums in Turkey, focusing on the Ottoman Imperial Museum [Müze-i Hümayun (1887-1891)], the Museum of Pious Foundations [Evkaf-ı İslamiye Müzesi (1914)], Ankara Ethnographical Museum (1925-1927; opened in 1930), the non-implemented project including a National Museum (also called as Hittite Museum) (1933), and the Hittite Museum (also known as Eti Müzesi; and later called as Anatolian Civilizations Museum) (restoration began in 1938)]. In order to provide a critical evaluation, the study utilizes the knowledge produced not only in architecture but also in history, archaeology, ethnography, and museology while analyzing the formation of those museums within their contexts.

Subject Keywords

Museums, Museums

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614547/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/21703

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Afterlives of Hagia Sophia: the change in the official attitudes towards preserving antiquities in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Periods Keskin, Ümran; Güven, Suna Naziyet; Department of History of Architecture (2011) The history and ideology of preservation increasingly arouse interest in parallel with the rising importance of the cultural heritage and preserving it. Hagia Sophia is one of the monuments that comes to mind immediately when the cultural heritage of Turkey is mentioned. Both as a Byzantine and an Ottoman ecclesiastical and imperial monument, Hagia Sophia bears political and religious importance besides its artistic and architectural uniqueness, 1500 years after its construction. This study aims to expose t...
Socio-economic and socio-political developments in Palestine under the British mandate : 1917-1939 Karaş, Esin; Şeker, Nesim; Department of Middle East Studies (2009) This thesis analyzes the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict and the historical evolvement of the Palestinian issue by focusing on the practices during the British mandate period. First and foremost, the factors which transformed the Jewish question into the Palestinian question are elaborated. In this context, the emergence of modern political Zionism is presented as the landmark incident in arousing the interest of the Jews dispersed all around the world in the colonization of their promised lands. Althou...
Virtual museums: a new space for architectural documentation and display Tekin, Damla; Savaş Sargın, Ayşen; Department of Architecture (2017) The practice of museology has a broad discourse based upon ideological, sociological, technological and architectural disciplines. This thesis will only cover two of these disciplines, architecture and technology, while analysing the museum environment as it is believed that museums are one of the most independent architectural spaces in both design and narration. Today, the field of virtual museums becomes very dynamic due to technological innovations and it offers different conceptual ideas for architectu...
From houses to house museums: architectural representation of different narrations Günhan, Aslıhan; Savaş Sargın, Ayşen; Department of Architecture (2011) The transformation of historic houses into house museums is not only a current issue within the field of museology, but also a new phenomenon for architecture. The deconstruction of the term “house museum” into “house” and “museum” and the meaning these terms acquire, have the potential to generate a new discussion in architecture. Besides being a physical dwelling unit, “house” will be interpreted as a domestic space where the inhabitants are able to personalize. A museum, on the other hand, will be approa...
Interpretation and presentation of natural and cultural heritage sites : environmental design project for Göreme Open Air Museum Özçakır, Özgün; Şahin Güçhan, Neriman; Restoration in Department of Architecture (2012) The main subject of the thesis is “interpretation” and “presentation” of cultural and natural heritage sites which is an important phenomenon providing sustainability and protection of the heritage sites. Interpretation and conservation are tightly associated to each other. Individuals will learn more about the heritage site by the help of interpretation and as a result of understanding; they will have an intention to protect the historic site more; and protection will ensure continuity of the site. Interpr...

Citation Formats

P. Gürol Öngören, “Displaying cultural heritage, defining collective identity: museums from the late Ottoman Empire to the early Turkish Republic,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2012.