Investigation of Turhal sugar factory as a cultural and industrial heritage

Industrialization and the subsequent Industrial Revolution changed the way of life and production, causing agricultural societies to turn into industrial societies. This process has deeply affected societies and cities in terms of cultural, socio-economic and architectural aspects. Factories established outside the cities with industrialization have created large campuses with housing and social structures in order to facilitate the transportation of the employees. These campuses are located in areas close to railways or ports in order to provide raw materials or distribute the processed products. However, these settlements, which were established outside the cities, remained inside the rapidly growing cities with industrialization over time. Changes in production patterns with the developments in science and technology have led to the abandonment of these industrial structures over time. Thus, the abandoned industrial structures within the city centers were either demolished for the sake of economic rent or left to their fate. However, these industrial structures reflect the life styles of cities and societies; their economic, cultural and social structures; architectural features and materials of the period; they are important architectural heritages that should be preserved and transferred to the future, as they contain information that gives many clues about the technologies that were active in the process. In this study, it is focused on the protection of industrial heritages, whose numbers are decreasing day by day in Turkey, with sustainable policies, and it is aimed to develop suggestions for their participation in the life of the cities they are located in. Turhal Sugar Factory, which was one of the first four sugar factories in Turkey in the Republican Period, was chosen as the study area for this purpose. First of all, by conducting a literature study, the necessary conceptual framework for industrial buildings in the context of cultural and industrial heritage was created, and information on the selected factory and its campus at the building and city scale was obtained. With the field study, on-site determinations, observations and interviews were made. By making an inventory of the factory and its campus with all the data obtained, its spatial uses and its place in the development of the city from past to present were examined and its problems in the context of conservation policies were revealed. As a result, it has been determined that the factory and its campus, which have structural and spatial use problems as cultural and industrial heritage, have an important place in the development and identity of the city. Sustainable conservation proposals have been developed for the citizens to use this area more actively with this study, which can form a basis for the conservation work to be done.