Domestic Space, Modernity, and Identity: The Apartment in Mid-20th Century Turkey

My analysis of ordinary spaces, such as maids' rooms, balconies, and bathrooms, constitutes a rich and unexplored domain that exposed the continuation and modernization of hierarchical class relations; it also highlights women's gendered identity in domestic space. Most significantly, the analysis demonstrates that the urban apartment, as a physical embodiment of contemporary beliefs, social norms, and shared values, occupied the confluence of cultural modernity and architectural Modernism. The apartment as social space revealed the desire of inhabitants, architects, and interior designers for change that was informed by political and cultural ideals of the West, reconfigured by postwar geopolitics. Residents and designers conceptualized the apartment as the epitome of modernity. However, they simultaneously embraced cultural priorities in creating domestic space for a consumer society shaped by political dynamics. Concepts of modern architecture were blended with traditional ones. In that sense, apartment interiors embodied a liminal space in which a desire to belong to a universal civilization coexisted with resistance and a return to tradition. Inside the unadorned facades, architectural Modernism was overcome by Turkish modernity. The spatial composition of apartments and their material culture represented the plurality, complexity, and ambiguity of Modern architecture.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Architecture

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Gurel, Meltem Havva

Contributors dc:contributor

• Panayiota I. Pyla

• Architecture

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3269909

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/87357