Ulus Square is a very special place which has been shaped through the history with many interventions. Throughout its life during the Rebublic, the square became an entity that is formed with the stratification of Turkey’s changing architectural discourses. With the layers that have been added through Turkey’s journey of modernism, the square was defined by a number of important late modernist buildings. The conservation of modernist architecture is a challenge for communities of architecture, as communicating the values of modernist heritage is much more difficult as compared to other “historical” beings that the general public can appreciate with ease. This presentation will tell the story of how the communities of architecture in Ankara cooperated to convince the municipality to stop the demolishment decision for the 100th Year Commerce Center, through a narration of continuity and discontinuity of planning decisions and political positions.

Biography:

Yiğit Acar received his Ph.D. in Architecture from Middle East Technical University in 2017and has been teaching in Bilkent since then. His research interests include theory of architecture and urbanism, urban design, mapping, data mining and visualization. His current research focuses on disciplinary history of urban design and typo-morphological analysis of Turkish cities.