Historic rural landscape preservation project of Bilecik-Osmaneli Gunuoren Village

Günüören village is a rural settlement in Osmaneli district of Bilecik. It is an important cultural heritage, which has survival achitectural texture with natural landscape. However with the industurial evolution, cities started to become crowded rapidly and get bigger while the population of rural settlements decrease, like many other villages in our country and over the world. Despite the diminution of population, the region of Bilecik is ancient place with its rich history, includes Phrygian, Lydian, Persian, Roman and Byzantine civilizations and it was also an important sattlement in Ottoman period. Osmaneli was one of the developed districts of Bilecik and it was called Lefke until 1914. Its name changed to 'Osmaneli' from 'Lefke' in aim to honor the founder of the Ottoman empire 'Osman Gazi'. The region was famous with its silk and folk were growing silkworms in their traditional houses which were specialised for this purpose. Top floors of the houses were spacious and wide empty places with uncovered roof structure. In two months of year silkworms were grown and collected, turned into raw silk, which were used in weaving. But with increase of faux silk importated from China, this production is left in most of the sattlements. As a result of this proccess, barter between Turk and Greek populations and industial evolution population of villiges decreased seriously. Large population decline caused abandonment of traditional houses. Altough faster deteriorations seen most commonly in abandoned houses, population decline prevents houses from damages caused by humans. Therefore Günüören village is well saved area which has uniqe architecture, however open to deterioration caused by nature and time. Since its important specialities and never being studied before, Günüören village decided to be the subject of thesis. In the first part of thesis, aim of the study and methodology introduced. After then history, economic and social activities of the research area were described. Following parts study continues with update of 1/500 scaled settlement plan and 1/1000 scaled analysis. In fifth part, detailed research and consideration of architectural properties of area are explained due to the 1/200 scaled plan, section and elevation drawings of selected four buildings. In the sixth part of thesis, several conservation problems explained and followed by solution proposals and planned interventions aimed developing a sustainable system which provides economical strength and attractive potential to the village with conservation and reuse projects for the selected areas. In conclution importance of holistic approach in conservation is described and urgency of scientific underlined.