The Exhibition House in Ankara: building (up) the ‘national’ and the ‘modern’
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 16; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/13602365.2011.636992
ISSN1466-4410
Autores Tópico(s)Photography and Visual Culture
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements I have been thinking about the Exhibition House since my early postgraduate years, and it was an important case in my doctoral dissertation. Earlier and shorter versions of this study were presented at conferences and published in Turkish. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Belgin Turan Özkaya for their valuable comments and suggestions, which helped improve the final form of this essay. Notes Behçet and Bedrettin, ‘Türk İnkılap Mimarisi’, Mimar, 9–10 (1933), p. 266. Among the pioneering and most influential works in this expanding field of study are B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York, Verso, 1983); E. J. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983); and E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990). For the role of the state in social control, see James C. Scott, Seeing like a State (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1998). See, for example, İ. Aslanoğlu, Erken Cumhuriyet Dönemi Mimarlığı (Ankara, ODTÜ Mimarlık Fakültesi Basım İşliği, 1980), p. 42. Said argues that cultural forms are hybrid, mixed, and impure: E. W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York, Vintage Books, 1993), pp. 4–14. Investigating how ‘Baalbek had no fixed form’, Upton argues for ‘the unbounded fluidity and porosity of architecture’ that necessitates writing its history as ‘a story of webs and flows’: D. Upton, ‘Starting from Baalbek: Noah, Solomon, Saladin, and the Fluidity of Architectural History’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 68, 4 (2009), pp. 457–465. M. Giebelhausen, ‘Introduction: The Architecture of the Museum: Symbolic Structures, Urban Contexts’, in, M. Giebelhausen, ed., Architecture of the Museum (Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 4. ‘İktisat ve Tasarruf Cemiyetinin İlk Sergievi İnşaatı Bu Ay Bitiyor’, Hakimiyet-i Milliye, 7 (Temmuz [July], 1934), p. 4. For a critical evaluation of the museum as ‘exhibitionary complex’, see Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum (London and New York, Routledge, 1995). C. C. Lörcher (1884–1966) worked in Turkey during the very early years of the Turkish Republic. A. Cengizkan, Ankara'nın İlk Planı 1924–25 Lörcher Planı: Kentsel Mekan Özellikleri. 1932 Jansen Planına ve Bugüne Katkıları, Etki ve Kalıntıları (Ankara, Ankara Enstitüsü Vakfı ve Arkadaş Yayıncılık Ltd, 2004). G. Tankut, Bir Başkentin İmarı (İstanbul, Anahtar Kitaplar, 1993). H. Jansen (1869–1945) worked in Turkey during the 1930s having won the competition for the plan of Ankara in the late 1920s. In a contemporary Belgian newspaper article on the development of Ankara, it was stated that 3,500 new buildings had been constructed in ten years following the foundation of the Republic: quoted in B. Şimşir, Ankara … Ankara. Bir Başkentin Doğuşu (Ankara, Bilgi Yayınevi, 1988), p. 398. A. Cengizkan, Ankara'nın …, op. cit., pp. 62–63. Tony Bennett, The Birth …, op. cit., p. 87. ‘Sergi Binası Müsabakası’, Mimar, 5 (1933), pp. 131–153. The aims at the foundation of the Society were ‘a) to make people fight against wasteful expenditure, and economize and save; b) to make national products known, loved and used; c) to try to increase national production, to make national products compatible with foreign ones …, and to lower their prices; d) to provide a good living for the people by circulating national products effectively.’ These aims would be fulfilled by ‘a) increasing membership; b) publications and conferences; c) encouraging the institutions that produce and consume national products; d) opening exhibitions and department stores.’ Milli İktisat ve Tasarruf Cemiyeti Nizamnamesi (Ankara, I. S. Matbaası, 1929). ‘Sergievi’, Ankara Haftası, 1 (Sonteşrin [November], 1934), p. 1. F. R. Atay, ‘Son Sergi’, Hakimiyet-i Milliye, (12th Eylül [September], 1934), p. 98. ‘Seyyar Sergi’, Ankara Haftası, 8 (Sonteşrin [November], 1934), p. 3. ‘Sergievi’, op. cit., p. 1. ‘İktisat ve Tasarruf …’, Hakimiyet-i Milliye, op. cit., p. 4. For an analysis of the relationship between nation-state and cultural processes as exemplified in the case of architecture in Turkey, see E. Altan Ergut, ‘Making a National Architecture: Architecture and the Nation-State in Early Republican Turkey’ (PhD Dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1998). Hasan Ali Yücel, Milli Eğitimle İlgili Söylev ve Demeçler (Ankara, T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1993), pp. 268–69. Referring to Bakanlar Kurulu Kararları (‘Decisions of the Ministerial Board’), we may count among these the Exhibition of National Products (1934), Turkey before and after the Lausanne Treaty (1934), Soviet Painting (1934), Turkish Painters (1935), Health (1935), Agriculture (1935), Turkey: Land of History, Beauty, and Work (1936), Handcrafts (1936), Photography in Turkey (1936), Coal (1937), Institutes for Girls and Schools of Arts and Crafts (1938), Savings (1938), Turkish Publishing (1938), State Painting and Sculpture (1939–43), Books in English (1941), New German Architecture (1943), Sümerbank (1944), Republican Public Works (1944) and Turkish-English Trade and Industry (1945). See also G. Akçura, Türkiye Sergicilik ve Fuarcılık Tarihi (İstanbul, Tarih Vakfı ve TÜYAP, 2009), pp. 123–157. F. E. S. Kaplan, ‘Exhibitions as Communicative Media’, in, E. Hooper-Greenhill, ed., Museum, Media, Message (London and New York, Routledge, 1995), p. 38. Tony Bennett, The Birth …, op. cit., pp. 23–24. Tony Bennett, ‘The Exhibitionary Complex’, in, R. Greenberg, B.W. Ferguson, S. Nairne, eds, Thinking about Exhibitions (London and New York, Routledge, 1996), p. 82. The Imperial Museum in İstanbul was founded in the late Ottoman period by the efforts of Osman Hamdi who was appointed as the chief of the museum in 1881. As a firm supporter of the then-prevalent belief in the need to ‘civilise’ the Empire in ‘Western’ terms, he struggled hard to establish modern museum practices in the Ottoman Empire. It was also during his time in office that a building was constructed in 1891 exclusively to house the museum. See W. M. K. Shaw, Possessors and Possessed. Museums, Archaeology and the Visualization of History in the Late Ottoman Empire (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2003). R. W. Rydell, World of Fairs. The Century-of-Progress Expositions (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993). S. Kantarcıoğlu, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Hükümet Programlarında Kültür (Ankara, Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1987). The Museum of Islamic and Byzantine Works of Art was established in the Topkapı Palace in İstanbul in 1924 and the Museum of Paintings and Sculpture was formed in the Dolmabahçe Palace in 1937. The belongings of religious places that were deemed to have historical, artistic or ethnographic value were transferred to existing museums in 1925, or, as with the construction of the Ethnography Museum in Ankara in 1926, a new museum was established to house them. See Z. Kezer, ‘Familiar Things in Strange Places: Ankara's Ethnography Museum and the Legacy of Islam in Republican Turkey’, in, Sally Ann McMurry and Annmarie Adams, eds, People, Power, Places (Knoxville, TN, University of Tennessee Press, 2000). The Mevlana convent in Konya was turned into a museum in Konya in 1926. Similarly, Hagia Sophia, which had been a mosque since the Ottomans conquered Istanbul in 1453, was opened to public as a ‘monument-museum’ in 1934. See E. Altan Ergut, ‘(Re)forming the Collective Memory: The Modern Museum in Early Republican Turkey’, 2nd Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics (2003); M. Önder, ‘Atatürk ve Müzeler’, IX. Türk Tarih Kongresi, III (1989), p. 1840. It was required by the Ministry of Culture that schools would hold exhibitions each year to display the works accomplished during the year: see On Beşinci Yıl Kitabı (Ankara, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi Yayını, 1938). N. Gurallar Yeşilkaya, Halkevleri: İdeoloji ve Mimarlık, (İstanbul, İletişim Yayınları, 1999). Seyyar Terbiye Sergisi (Ankara, T.C. Maarif Vekaleti, 1933). L. J. Vale, Architecture, Power and National Identity (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1992). On Beşinci Yıl Kitabı, op. cit., p. 115. Referring to Bakanlar Kurulu Kararları (‘Decisions of the Ministerial Board’) we see that, between 1926 and 1937, Turkey participated in exhibitions as varied as the Exhibition on Roads (1926) in Milan, Aircraft (1926) in Poland, Publications (1928) in Cologne, Iranian Works of Art (1930) in London, Travel (1930) in New York, Byzantine Industry (1931) in Paris, Chinese Art (1935) in London, Animals (1936) in Pest, and Turkish Painting and Publication (1937) in Belgrade. G. Akçura, Türkiye…, op. cit.; Karadeniz. Seyr-i Türkiye, documentary film (Garanti Bankası, 2006). Ibid., G. Akçura, Türkiye… A. Nasır, Türk Mimarlığında Yabancı Mimarlar (PhD Dissertation, İTÜ, 1993). Most of these European architects were from German-speaking countries: see B. Nicolai, Moderne und Exil: DeutchsprachigeArchitekten in der Turkie, 1925–1955 (Berlin, verlag für Bauwesen, 1998); B. Dog˘ramaci, Kulturtransfer und nationale Identität. Deutschsprachige Architekten, Stadtplaner und Bildhauer in der Tu¨rkei nach 1927 (Berlin, Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2008). Ş. Balmumcu, ‘I…’, Mimar, 1 (1931), p. 12. The Italian architect Paolo Vietti-Violi (1882–1965) worked in Turkey during the 1930s, especially designing sports halls, which was his field of expertise. See İ. Aslanoğlu, ‘The Italian Contribution to 20th-Century Turkish Architecture’, Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre, 5 (1990), pp. 158–160. Şevki Balmumcu (1905–1982): see M. Önal, ‘Şevki Balmumcu ve Yaşamı’, Mimarlık, 179–180 (1982), pp. 3–4 and S. Sunay Özdemır, ‘20. Yüzyıl Mimarlık Mirası; Ankara Opera Binası ve 1923–1950 Yılları arası Türk Mimarlığında Yüksek Mimar Şevki Balmumcu'nun Yeri’ (unpublished Master's Thesis, Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi, 2001). Behçet and Bedrettin, ‘Türk İnkılap Mimarisi’, op. cit., pp. 265–266. M. Önal, ‘Anılarda Mimarlık’, Anılarda Mimarlık (İstanbul, YEM, 1995), pp. 48–58. The jury of the competition mostly consisted of officials, with only three of the total ten members being architects. The jury members were the Head of the National Economy and Savings Society, the General Manager of Agriculture, the General Manager of the Economy, the Representative to the Director of Reconstruction, the Technical Counsellor to the Ministry of Economy, the Secretary-General for the National Economy and Savings Society, the Head of the Construction Department of the National Railways, the Head of the Architects' Association of Ankara, one architect from the Ministry of National Education and one foreign architect. ‘Sergievi Binası Müsabakası’, Mimar, 5 (1933; Arkitekt from 1935), pp. 131–153. Ibid.: besides the winning projects, the entries by the Turkish architects Sedad Hakkı, Hüsnü, Abdullah Ziya, Nizamettin Hüsnü and Seyfettin Nasih were also published in the journal. Ibid. K. Emiroğlu, ‘Devrimin Aynası La Turquie Kemaliste’te Devrimin Vitrini Ankara', www.boyut.com.tr/.../kudret%20emiroğlu%20-%20devrimin%20vitrini%20ankara.doc (retrieved 14.04.11). Ş. Balmumcu, ‘Küçük Seyahat’, Mimar, 3 (1934), pp. 92–95. Ibid. Behçet and Bedrettin, ‘Mimarlıkta İnkılap’, Mimar, 8 (1933), p. 247. Ş. Balmumcu, ‘I…’, op. cit., p. 12. Celal Esad [Arseven], Yeni Mimari (Istanbul, Agah-Sabri Kitaphanesi, 1931). Celal Esad stated in the book that it was based on Andre Lurçat's Architecture of 1929. In its review, the book was praised as worthy of recommendation as it would help overcome the general unfamiliarity in the country with contemporary architectural movements. Still, it was also criticised as it did not include projects by Turkish architects as exemplary of the new trends in architecture. ‘Yeni Mimari’, Mimar, 11-12 (1931), p. 381. See also E. Altan Ergut, ‘Celal Esad Arseven's History of Architecture between the Past and the Present’, Aesthetics Bridging Cultures, International Congress of Aesthetics, Proceedings (Ankara, 2007). For a critical analysis of architecture during the early Republican period in Turkey, see S. Bozdoğan, Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2001). ‘Sergievi Binası Müsabakası’, op. cit., pp. 131–153. The ruling elites are said to have favoured the ‘modern’ in architecture at the time. Zeki Sayar, editor-in-chief of Arkitekt, recalls that the founding president Atatürk himself did not appreciate ‘old classical architecture’ and preferred ‘modern architecture’ instead: Z. Sayar, ‘Anılarda Mimarlık’, Anılarda Mimarlık (İstanbul, YEM, 1995), p. 104. ‘The congruence of curatorial demands for utility and the modernist aesthetics of the International Style did produce a new museum paradigm in the 1930s’, for which the Exhibition House provided an example: A. McClellan, The Art Museum from Boullée to Bilbao (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 2008), p. 75. ‘Ankara Sergievi’, Arkitekt, 4 (1935), p. 97. İ. Aslanoğlu, ‘Sergievi’, Mimarlık, 9 (1985), p. 38. Balmumcu explained his choice of forms for the Exhibition House as follows: ‘While seeing an exhibition people do not turn in 90 degrees. That is why I made the halls circular.’; quoted in http://www.kenthaber.com/Haber/Genel/Kose/yilmaz-erguvenc/yikim-hastaligimiz-yine-mi-nuksetti_/e134300d-07fc-4f19-bcb9-d6c515b2f3c0 (retrieved 13.04.11). ‘Ankara Sergievi’, op. cit., p. 97. ‘Sergi Binası Müsabakası’, op. cit., p. 131. ‘Güzel Bir Mimari Eseri, Ankara Sergievi, Bitmiş Gibidir’, Hakimiyet-i Milliye, 3 (Eylül[September], 1934), p. 5. İ. Aslanoğlu, ‘Sergievi’, op. cit., pp. 37–39. The other building was the Presidential House designed by an Austrian, C. Holzmeister: see Ü. Alsaç, Türkiye'de Mimarlık Düşüncesinin Cumhuriyet Dönemindeki Evrimi (Trabzon, KTÜ Baskı Atelyesi, 1976), p. 54. D. Ghirardo, ‘Architects, Exhibitions, and the Politics of Culture in Fascist Italy’, Journal of Architectural Education, 45/2 (February, 1992), pp. 67–75. See also the other articles in the same issue of the Journal: L. Andreotti, ‘The Aesthetics of War: The exhibition of the Fascist Revolution’, pp. 76–86; J. T. Schnapp, ‘Fascism's Museum in Motion’, pp. 87–97; B. McLaren, ‘Under the Sign of the Reproduction’, pp. 98–106. See also M. Stone, ‘Staging Fascism: The Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution’, Journal of Contemporary History, 28 (1993), pp. 215–243. Ş. Balmumcu, ‘Küçük Seyahat’, op. cit. D. Ghirardo, ‘Architects,…’, op. cit. L. Andreotti, ‘The Aesthetics…’, op. cit., p. 77. Ş. Balmumcu, ‘Küçük Seyahat’, op. cit. Ş. Balmumcu, ‘I…’, op. cit., p. 12. For the agreement between the Ministry of National Education and the Emlak Bank for the transformation of the building, see ‘Ankara Sergievi Binasının Devlet Tiyatro ve Opera Binası haline ifrağı için Milli eğitim Bakanlığı ile Bankamız arasında akd ve imza edilen Sözleşme’, in, Murat Güvenç, Oğuz Işık, eds, Emlak Bankası 1926–1998 (İstanbul, Emlak Bankası, 1999), pp. 125–128. For a detailed discussion of the transformation process, see E. Altan Ergut, ‘Sergievi'nden Opera'ya: Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Modernleşme ve Mimarlık’, 60. Yıl (Ankara, Devlet Opera ve Balesi Genel Müdürlüğü, 2008), pp. 14–27; E. Altan Ergut, ‘Sergievi'nden Opera'ya: Bir Dönüşüm Üzerine Notlar’, Doxa (2006); E. Altan Ergut, ‘Building to Exhibit (for) the Nation: The Exhibition Building in Ankara’, in, M. Ghandour, et al., eds, Sites of Recovery, Architecture's (Inter)disciplinary Role. Proceedings, 4th International Other Connections Conference (Beirut, 1999), pp. 115–124. Paul Bonatz (1877–1956) worked in Turkey during the 1940s and 1950s. See E. Altan Ergut, ed., ‘Profil 1–2. Paul Bonatz ve Türkiye, 1943–1954’, Arredamento Mimarlık (Mayıs, Hazinan [May, June], 2011). The contemporary architectural press severely criticised the commissioning of a foreign architect for the transformation of the building although the architect of the original design of the building was still alive: see, for example, A. Kuruyazıcı, ‘Ankara'da Tiyatro Binası İhtiyacımız ve Sergievi’, Mimarlık, 3-4 (1946), pp. 14–15. The building is currently named Büyük Tiyatro ve Opera Binası [‘Grand Theatre and Opera Building’], and is used for state theatre, ballet and opera performances. ‘That the florescence of the Second National Movement was intimately tied to the pressures of war is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that the style, and its concomitant rhetoric, disappeared with the coming of peace.’: Ü. Alsaç, ‘The Second Period of Turkish National Architecture’, in, R. Holod, A. Evin, eds, Modern Turkish Architecture (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), p. 95. Musical, theatrical and opera performances took place in the hall of the Ankara People's House during the 1930s. In 1940, the then Minister of National Education stated the need for a separate stage. The solution found was to convert a conference hall into one for artistic performances although the intention to construct a separate building remained intact. H. A.Yücel, Milli Eğitimle…, op. cit. H. A. Yücel, ‘Devlet Konservatuarı İlk Mezunlarını Verirken’, Güzel Sanatlar, 3 (1941). K. Z. Gençosman, ‘Tabiatta ve Sanatta Opera’, Güzel Sanatlar, 3 (1941). F. R. Atay, ‘Yoktan Kurduk, Kurtaralım’, Hakimiyet-i Milliye (7th Mayıs [May], 1946). It is not certain why a new building was not constructed instead of transforming the Exhibition House. The practical reason behind this decision seems to have been economic, especially when the severe financial difficulties experienced in the country during the Second World War are taken into consideration: 60. Yıl, op. cit. The reason might also have been ideological, in that the need to exhibit and promote the success of the regime was no longer as strong as it had been during the early years of the Republic. The new exhibition spaces constructed from the late 1940s onwards emphasised more exclusively the economic role of exhibitions in the growing connections of Turkey with the world capitalist economy in the post-war period, as exemplified in the Sports and Exhibition Palace in İstanbul whose project was prepared in 1948 when the Theatre and Opera House in Ankara was opened. The exhibition building in İstanbul was designed by the Turkish architects Şinasi Şahingiray and Fazıl Aysu. For more information on the İstanbul Exhibitions, see G. Akçura, Türkiye…, op. cit., pp. 156–179; for the historical background of the planning of the site since the plan of İstanbul by the French architect H. Prost (1874–1959), see P. Pinon, C. Bilsel, İ. Akpınar, eds, İmparatorluk Başkentinden Cumhuriyet'in Modern Kentine: Henri Prost'un İstanbul Planlaması (1936–1951) (İstanbul Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, 2010). P. Bonatz, Leben und Bauen (Stuttgart, Engelhornverlag Adolf Spemann, 1950), p. 253. ‘Ankara Sergievi’, op. cit., p. 97. Donald Preziosi, ‘Introduction: Power, Structure, and Architectural Function’, in, I. A. Bierman, R.A. Abou-El-Haj, D. Preziosi, eds, The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order (New Rochelle, New York, Aristide D. Caratzas, 1991), pp. 103–104. For the architecture of museum spaces, S. MacLeod similarly argues for a ‘site-specific’ history that looks beyond the ‘aesthetic outcome’ by analysing their production and use: ‘Rethinking Museum Architecture. Towards a Site-Specific History of Production and Use’, in, S. MacLeod, ed., Reshaping Museum Space: Architecture, Design, Exhibitions (New York, Routledge, 2005), pp. 9–25. The problem with such constructs ‘is that they are generally [taken as] binary constructs as if there were no categories before, between and after’: A. D. King, ‘Architecture, Capital and the Globalization of Culture’, in, M. Featherstone, ed., Global Culture. Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity (London, Sage Publications, 1990), pp. 408–409.
Referência(s)