Transition in Spaces of Power: An analysis on public buildings in Ankara, Turkey.

Abstract

Ankara, the capital of Turkey, experienced a fundamental spatial structuring process after the proclamation of the Republic. The vision of modernity and protective economic structure of the Early Republican era determined the spatial configuration of the city and produced public buildings as the icons of the young regime. City planning and architecture had been used as the instruments of the new regime in making itself visible, concrete, and symbolized. The buildings and urban plans transmitting the foundation ideals of Republic together with modernity have contributed to the creation of national sovereignty and a modern society. After the span of eighty years, the new politic-economic climate of Turkey redesigned the urban regime of Ankara and its symbols. One of the most concrete transformations is observed in the public offices which convey the political and economic intents of each period through their spatial and architectural organizations, and symbolic meanings. This study examines the change in the urban symbols with an emphasis on public offices; their spatial organization, their archistar buildings, and their messages conveyed to public with respect to the change in political and economic systems. This article concludes that public offices and their relations with urban space and public are considered as the icons in representing the dominant political power in both the early republican period and post-2000s; the former period benefited them as the visual representations of national sovereignty while the latter used them as the landmarks of the authoritarian and neoliberal political power over the nation.