A Theory of Architectural Production in a Geography of Change: Auguste Choisy in the Ottoman Empire

Abstract

This article presents an expanded intellectual, historical and geographical context of Auguste Choisy’s history of architecture. Reading his history of Byzantine architecture along with his travelogue, L’Asie Mineure et les Turcs en 1875 (1876), the article situates Choisy’s notion of architectural production in relation to the background of the modernisation projects of the Ottoman Empire. It draws connections between Choisy’s historical and geographical thought at the end of the nineteenth century, articulating the notion of a material landscape composed of resources, work, and a sense of environment that suggested the ways in which a society transforms the earth to inhabit it. With environment in the background, Choisy’s history articulated architecture as an index of how a society makes use of its resources, organises work and allows for experimentation within its systems of knowledge.