Traces of modernization in the rural: A study on the heritage values and conservation of the village institutes campuses

The Early Republican Period involved many reforms that aimed to create a nation. In 1937, it was planned to train village teachers as an education policy developed to support rural development. As a result, Village Teacher Training Schools and Village Instructor Courses were opened as a first trial. This attempt turned into an education movement spread throughout the country, with 21 Village Institutes established between 1940-1948. Village Institutes were officially closed in 1954. In this thesis, 21 Village Institute campuses were examined by comparing their original and current situations. In the light of the analysis made by this research, which was carried out to grasp the architectural traces of the modern in the rural, it was aimed to support the theoretical knowledge obtained as a result of literature and archive studies by overlapping them with the data collected from the site surveys. As a method, a conceptual model has been developed for studying the values and conservation of Village Institutes. Research, documentation, analysis, and evaluation stages were carried out separately for each institute in different details. Finally, a Geographical Information Systems database was created to bring together this comprehensive research data and transform the information into spatial data. In this way, spatial analysis was formed with historical and current data of the Village Institutes system, which was a significant social and cultural part of the modernization movements of the Republic of Turkey in the Early Republican Period. Subsequently, conservation principles were developed to carry the Village Institute campuses to the future with their tangible and intangible heritage qualities.