A threshold in Turkish architecture: 1980's

Architecture became an identifiable profession in Turkey approximately a century ago and has gone through several breaking points since then. The journey of the profession in the country was -naturally- in parallel with the history of Turkey, and thresholds such as the Republican era, the 1950s, 1970s, 1980s, and 2000s and beyond were as significant for social and economic life as they were for architecture. Central to this study is the assumption that, among all the breaking points of architecture in Turkey, the 1980s saw the emergence of today's architecture practice and scale, the commissioner-auteur model, and architecture's shift from the sphere of public ideology and government to the sphere of the society and as a result popular culture as the actors of the new market economy created by neoliberal attitudes. It is further assumed that the 1980s harbors the foundations that explain the environment and production of architecture today. The study focuses on a specific period as it attempts to grasp the relationships between the stakeholders of the architecture scene as changes that are beyond causality carve profound and permanent changes into architecture. Two methods were employed for research on the period. The first method is conceptual and historical research, and the second method is qualitative research and oral history. Although the changes that began in 1980 have had extensive effects over two decades, this dissertation focuses on the period between 1980 and 1990 and goes deeper into the production of the most influential actors of the period to determine how the profession and the identity of the architect were influenced by this threshold. Since the process is shaped within a framework constructed towards comprehension, qualitative survey methods were employed and purposive sampling was used. Conceptual work provides an overview of the period and explains its impact on architecture; qualitative surveys and oral history study the structures produced by the three selected lead actors in the period; and interviews uncover thoughts, feelings and experiences to further define the framework as it relates to the architecture environment in general. The qualitative study considered three distinct architecture practices when choosing the 1980s actors that would be its focus: an actor who was involved in the practice long before the 1980s, under different economic and social conditions, and evolved into a large-scale business in the 1980s; an actor who started the profession immediately before 1980 and expanded their activity during the decade; and an actor who continues to employ a locally-sensitive and abstract language that remains detached from the aura of the 1980s. The studied architects are Doğan Tekeli (SİTE), who was going through the process of instutionalization during the period; Merih Karaaslan, who combined the pluralistic language of the period with the newly-emerging commissioner identity; and Ersen Gürsel, who provides an opportunity to explore the period based on touristic structures as one of the most significant typologies of both planning and structure-scale development, and continues to practice architecture on a certain scale with an abstract and locally-conscious approach. The fundamental questions of the study are the changes in the architect's methods of obtaining a commission, the change in the architect's means of self-expression, the change in the typology of the structures designed by the architect as a result of changing commissioner attitudes, and the impression that the spirit of the period left on architects. The 1980s bears a special significance on the role of the architect as a professional in Turkey. Although neoliberal policies and their socio-economic instruments were dominant across the world, they were implemented in Turkey as a result of a military coup and without any of the cultural or economic conditions present, which caused the floor to shift beneath almost the entire country. The architect was exposed to the dynamics of the period like all other citizens but has also become one of the subjects in the relationship between this transformation and the physical space. Policies towards a smaller government and more foreign investment or private enterprise in the 1980s helped SİTE become a large-scale institution as it provided service not only to industrial companies where the firm had expertise, but also to financial institutions and burgeoning local capital. As the State decentralized and delegated its tasks, more investment was made in the periphery, leading to the emergence of a new profile in the provinces that did not previously have a tradition of commissioning architecture services. Merih Karaaslan, architect to projects commissioned by this profile in different geographical areas, designed buildings that stood out and was therefore considered to have more marketing potential by their commissioners. Karaaslan was featured in daily newspapers in the 1980s and was named among the top 100 most popular figures in Ankara by a weekly magazine. It is not a coincidence that the differentiation in identity and language, which garnered both interest and criticism from professional circles, in the 1980s. Ersen Gürsel, who had received his degree nearly 20 years ago and had been an independent architect for 11 years in 1980, was a practicing architect and a planner, a practice legally not permitted today, worked with commissioners and locations that emerged as a result of tourism policies. Gürsel has pursued rational abstraction and a neo-vernacular based on local data in his designs, always making the social responsibility of the architect central to his dealings with commissioners. He made designs for the leading industrialists and investors in Turkey (Sadi Şener, Güler Sabancı, Sevil Sabancı), but these designs were limited to residences or boutique hotels in scale, always the result of intimate and sensitive communication. Gürsel never offered to undertake commissions that were of larger scale and budget by the corporations represented by these individuals, and his commissioners never insisted that he take these commissions. If one were to consider these three architectural practices shaped by the various relationships in the 1980s as distinct genres, it may be argued that all three are among the fundamental trends that continue to thrive to this day. The architect of today practices in an area constrained by ever-increasing property costs, the changing proportions of buildable area which ultimately determines the size of the structure and the profit of the contractor or developer, gray areas that are susceptible to stretching, the requirement to maximize sellable/rentable area, the motives of the construction materials industry, and a legion of specialists that each build their own perimeter with designs and execution processes that sometimes overflow from meeting rooms. These stakeholders all played a part in transforming the professional practice and prestige of the architect as the side effects of a glamorous, pluralistic and promising world that took Turkey under its influence in the 1980s. Although the situation may have been similar in all professions in Turkey, the case was different for architects as the circumstances left an indelible mark on the physical environment and the city at their hands. Even today, there are architects who design for large corporations, create projects that are popular and marketable in terms of both image and structure, undertake auteur designs in the most speculative of structure typologies, and do not seek further recognition or profit by expanding their scale. The continuous integration of Turkey into global capital since the 1980s, the concept of "developer" that considers the structure a commodity and transforms the relationship between the commissioner and the architect, and the ambitious, profit-maximizing attitudes of the new owners of the capital that changed hands under the increasingly fragmented and polarized socio-economic structure of Turkey changed and reduced architecture's sphere of influence, as well as diversified and intensified the trends initially observed in the 1980s. This dissertation attempts to provide insight for the present day by examining the motives and precursors of this change, and its impact on the practice of architecture