Evolution of khan buildings of Ottoman Period in Gaziantep and its projection of the development of the city

Ottoman domination in Ayintab continued from 1516 until the Republican period, which began in 1923. The purpose of this thesis is to study the history and architecture of khans built in the city, to examine the stylistic transformation of them within centuries, the architectural evolution they experienced, and also to investigate to which extent this style overlaps with the khans in the nearby cities and the capital city Istanbul in the same period. Included in the scope of the study are the khans that have reached today, as well as the khans that are nonextant. With this work, the information about the khans in the scope was updated. The information imbedded in the history or forgotten in the archives related to these khans were uncovered, and the data found to be incomplete or incorrect in the existing literature were corrected. The information and details gathered from the secondary sources and newly discovered from the primary sources are evaluated. The khans, which are investigated with this new data, are compared with each other and with the khans in nearby cities and the capital city Istanbul. Graphs and maps were created and periodical analyzes were carried out. These analyzes and comparisons reveal the architectural and stylistic transformation of the Ottoman period khans in Gaziantep from the 16th to the 20th century, and show how this style matches up with the architectural tendencies of the period. Another importance of the study is that it is one of the first implementations of the web-based architectural history education tool Timeline Travel, which is the output of the Project entitled "Timeline Travel: An Alternative Tool for Architectural History Learning and Teaching" and funded under the framework of 2017 Erasmus+ KA203 Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education grants by the Center for European Union Education and Youth Programmes (Turkish National Agency). . Key Words: Gaziantep, Ottoman architecture, khan buildings