The embedded politics of type: Sedad Hakkı Eldem and the Turkish House

Abstract

From architectural type’s foundational definition by A. C. Quatremère de Quincy through to contemporary discourse, the fact that the principles that constitute a type are rooted in precedent infuses type with its own politics and latent critical position regarding history and change. This criticality may be activated or deactivated as a society’s embrace or rejection of its own historical trajectory changes through time. An analysis of three case studies representative of the typological practice of the Turkish architect Sedad Hakkı Eldem illustrates how, due to the politics of type, this criticality waxes and wanes with Turkish society’s changing relationship with its sociocultural status quo. Eldem’s consistency in his use of the Turkish House type within the dramatically transforming circumstances of early Republican Turkey makes evident the embedded politics of type. Understanding the politics of type establishes that type is not a neutral design tool, and that its use implies an ideological position that architects have the agency to define.