Analysis of re-functionalised prisons within the framework of Alois Riegl's values

Alois Riegl, an art historian at the turn-of-the-century Vienna, where different debates on modernity were taking place, made an important contribution to conservation studies with his 1903 text "The Cult of the Modern Monument". The oscillation of modernity between the understanding of creating a system on the basis of rationality brought by the Enlightenment and the understanding of accepting the modernization process with all its complexity and contradictions seems to have influenced Riegl's approach in the field of conservation. Riegl has tried to reconcile this dual understanding inherent in modernity. He established a system of values that does not exclude any singular example. Riegl opened a new channel for conservation studies by presenting the understanding of value, which was fragmented in the conservation theory that began to form in the 19th century, in a theoretical unity. Especially until the 1970s, he overcame the understanding of art history based on dichotomies and periodization that could not come together at a very early stage. He questioned dichotomies such as old/new, forward/backward, modern/traditional, etc. and travelled between these concepts. For this reason, Riegl's "theory of values" is still influential in conservation studies today. This study analyses the re-functionalized prison buildings in Turkey within the framework of Riegl's value theory. Prisons were selected as case studies due to the fact that there are currently 378 unused prison buildings in Turkey and these buildings have the potential to contribute to the region, they are located in by being re-functionalized in the future. In this study, it was analyzed which values were brought to the forefront within the framework of Riegl's theory of values in prisons of different scales selected from Turkey, and the processes of re-functioning and conservation were analyzed. In the analyzed examples, it has been concluded that Riegl's commemorative value comes to the forefront, but other values should also be activated in the conservation process of a building. It is suggested that the theory of values, which will be important in terms of both the place of buildings in social memory and the continuity of their physical structures, should be taken into consideration in the future conservation processes of abandoned prison buildings.