Aziz Gokdemir
Take a stroll today in an old district of almost any sizable town in
Turkey and you’ll soon come across a few houses, sometimes a whole
neighborhood’s worth, in various stages of dilapidation—and lately, in
some cases, undergoing “rebirth” as part of a gentrification effort.
Commonly referred to as Ottoman, or “old Turkish” houses, they stand out
not only with their resilient vitality but also an innate sense of
design that’s painfully absent in the concrete towers racing skyward
just blocks away, replicating the late Romanian dictator Ceausescu’s
urban renewal aesthetic with perhaps slightly more inspired interiors
and high-end appliances.
That the old homes were built largely by the Ottoman Empire’s
Christian subjects (Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, depending on the
region) may be known to the occasional passerby with an interest in
architectural history. And weekend urban explorers who whip out their
cameras to commune with the shabby chic may take a moment or two to
ponder the loss of, say, the “urban fabric” or “sense of place.” As for
people—after all, the builders were members of vibrant communities whose
members had to live somewhere, perhaps in these houses now being
photographed—their loss, when not an afterthought, is often framed
within the context of the majority: We lost them; they added color to
our society, and now they’re gone.
