Change and transformation of monumental buildings and their environments in the historical period: Gaziantep mosques

Gaziantep historical city center is an important center in the south of the Southeastern Anatolia Region, which has many socio-cultural values due to its being a border city throughout history and being on commercial routes, and allowing the reasons for architectural development in the history of the city to be investigated. In the city of Gaziantep, the interaction of mosques with the urban texture and spatial formations, and the changes that these structures have undergone with their surroundings, repair and restoration practices have been examined. Considering the effect of religious buildings on the development of urban space phenomenon or the contribution of urban spatial formations to the architectural formation of religious buildings, it is important that these structures can be preserved in their current use in historical city centers. In the study, a research systematic that reveals the construction typology of the mosques built between the 12th and 19th centuries in Gaziantep by determining their location in the city, construction techniques, materials, repairs, changes and preservation problems with their environment has been developed. In this context, 11 mosques were examined in detail. Written and visual sources in the Ottoman archives were researched, and the changes in mosques and their immediate surroundings were analysed at the scale of a single building, with documents such as maps of periods, photographs taken at different dates from the 19th century, and aerial photographs. In order to analyse the architectural similarities of the mosques in the neighbouring cities with the Gaziantep mosques, a typological research was carried out in the context of location, plan and architectural details. Keywords: Gaziantep, Mosque, Typology, Urban Conservation