Wooden warehouses in the villages of the Sındırgı district of Balıkesir

This thesis examines "An Example of Transmission of Cultural Memory: Wood in Sındırgı Villages Warehouses". The concept of "warehouse" defines the place where vegetables, fruits, grains, basic foods and valuables are stored. There are warehouse forms that arise from the need within cultures and are shaped by using materials according to the geographical area where they are located. Warehouses built as an element of rural architecture are included in the folk architecture group in the field of architecture. The storage area needed by the nomadic communities, who have settled down, as a result of their dealings with agriculture, has revealed the warehouses that are the subject of our research. The fact that the warehouses are made of pine wood without the use of nails in terms of material and technique, on the one hand, ensures their longevity and on the other hand emphasizes the originality of the subject. These local structures, which continue to function until today with the transfer of traditional knowledge from generation to generation, bear the traces of cultural memory. Factors such as the geographical location of the villages in Sındırgı district, their distance from the center, family structure, and agricultural production activities have caused differences in the structural characteristics of warehouses. While the size of warehouses increases in mountain villages and crowded families with intensive agricultural production, small-sized warehouses are numerically superior in villages close to the center. The geography of the region and the different needs of the households have led to different typologies and examples of married barns, half barns and pumpkin barns have emerged.The pine wood used as material for the barns was obtained from the region. The warehouses were built without nails using the "wolf's throat fitting" and "stealing throat" techniques, which are made by fitting timbers together. In the warehouse structures, which are entirely made of wood, iron is only found in the door hinges. The hinges shaped by the forging technique are the only place in the building where ornamentation is seen. The geometric and floral motifs used on the hinges are also seen in the yörük weavings of the period. Keywords: Sındırgı, Yoruk, Warehouse, Vernaküler, Decoration, Woodwork