A study on the modern and the national notions in the architecture of Iran and Turkey on the beginnings of the 20th century

The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century caused the rise of modernism and nationalism in the whole world; after a short time, these two notions started to be effective in the architectural area as well as other areas. With the revivalism architecture in the 19th century in Europe, the history of each country has been used in the nationalist movements. In the first half of the 20th century the boundary between regionalism and history was increasing in all the countries. On the other hand, the criticisms about the uniformity, which was created by the universal language of modern architecture, have increased and the questions about it have started to be asked by a lot of people. By that time, the modernist style of architecture, which was also known as the international style, started to be formed and soon after that it started to be rejected; therefore, some new styles have been formed. The nationalism notion, which was rising in a parallel way with the modernism notion, has been formed in different styles in various countries. Despite the fact that the nationalist movements have been formed as some unique style of each country, the main goal of them was the same and that was the rejection of using the same architectural style in everywhere and forming an architecture that is unique and is considering the local values. In the last years of the 19th century and the early 20th century modernism and nationalism were rising together. Therefore, these two notions, which seem opposed, started to compromise with each other in the countries that were facing modernization and its changes. Hence, in the early 20th century, the Middle Eastern countries faced the nationalism movements with the modernization movements. In these times, İran and Turkey were facing some similar political and social conditions which would cause the rise of these two notions: "modernism" and "nationalism". In both of these countries in the close periods the new governments have been built and the leaders of these governments have shared the similar ideologies about the modernist reforms. Meanwhile the architectural areas of these countries have been striking too. The main dilemma of the architects in this period was the desire to design buildings, which were able to answer the new and modern needs of the modern lifestyle, by using modern technologies and also represent the national identity of their country in that time. Vartan Hovanessian, Sedad Hakkı Eldem, Andre Godard, Mimar Kemalettin Bey, Karim Taherzadeh Behzad, Vedat Tek, Nikolai Markov, Bruno Taut, Mohsen Foroughi and Giluio Mongeri were the architects who designed the buildings which were able to be used in the new and modern life of that period, also they had been unique because of representing some values of these countries. Therefore, because of the IV combination of modern and national notions, reflecting the ideologies of Turkey's Early Republican period and İran's Pahlavi period, these architects and their buildings are symbolic examples. In this thesis, the similar and different aspects of the reformist ideologies, which have been reflected in the architectural area of the early 20th century, have been examined. In this way the architects who have represented the modern and national ideologies in their works have been researched with their famous projects. In this study the mentioned architects and buildings have been analyzed by their unique modernist and nationalist style. The chosen names have been compared by each other because of their various similarities; however, the chosen similarity means to be the most effective one and that is how the dual architect names and buildings have been chosen. Therefore, Vartan Hovanessian (1896-1982) and Sedad Hakkı Eldem (1908-1988), Andre Godard (1881- 1965) and Mimar Kemalettin Bey (1870-1927), Karim Taherzadeh Behzad (1888-1963) and Vedat Tek (1873-1942), Nikolai Markov (1882 -1957) and Bruno Taut (1880-1938), Mohsen Foroughi (1907-1983) and Giulio Mongeri (1875-1953) are the names which have been analyzed by the dual comparison style. The scope of this study was limited by the first half of the 20th century when the modern and national notions were rising at the same time as when the two reformist leaders, Atatürk and Reza Pahlavi, were causing major changes in both countries; the aim of this study is reaching some beneficial information about the architectural history of both countries by using the comparison metodology.