The most common property of the modern town planning is the big squares and the big avenues and the boulevards opening to these squares are making the outlines of the city. In Europe in the process of building modern cities in connection with the new economical and the social relations, designing the cities can be symbolized just by the opening of the squares. The European capital cities just like Paris and London were recontsructed suitable for the social expectations and modernism rapidly getting rid of the traditional city structure in the era of the industry. After big destructions became upside and down and architecturally had important changes. It is clear that this change shows the traditonal city structure turns into a new modern city model so a new life style. In this context the function of the architects is very important; while designing houses for the modern life they designed the modern cities for the new life and social relations. The world views,perceptions of art andaesthetic of the architects seeing themselves as semi-gods because of this, became more important than it was expected in forming our lives. Our lives, I mean the places that we live and the forms of our relations are any more depended on the lines the architects drew on the tracing papers on their tables.

In the change of the cities as the social and economical relations, the role of the policy and the demand of the authority must also be considered. In the period of the nation-government based and increasingly centralized administration, the political authority had to hold the powers in its hand and control the society. It cannot be considered that the period of the formation of the centralized town planning is independent from the search for the modern government centralized authority; the squares opened in the era of Napoleon in Paris are the typical examples for this. In the base of the military success of Napoleon who was a gunner as an occupation, it is said that lies his using the cannon as a gun in the war. In Paris, shaken after the French revolution, against a possible rebellion that could come out anytime his constructing big squares in order to replace the big batteries of cannon is an interesting example for the relationship between the modern political period and the town planning.As a sign for the Turkish modernism, republic (and before that the period of westernization), nobody can claim that the Turkish town planning is independent from the western ideology

I could not hold myself thinking the relation between the values of merit upside and down in our society and the adventure that our cities had while looking at the albume ( Kayseri Through Pictures 1880-2006 Municiplity of Koca Sinan) consisted of the old pictures of Kayseri that is given as an example for the development in Anatolia today.

Comparing today with the photos of the last century, nolens volens forcing us to ask the question what remained back after the models produced during the history in the name of town planning in this historical city. Is it the constant uncertainty,anxiety of the sense of losing everytime I go to Kayseri witnessing that something is ruined? Everything is changing, more truely ruined that not only the things belonging to the past but also the ones built just a few years ago with great speeches, either they are not liked or cannot afford the need of the city so they are destroyed.

In the old black-white photos, Kayseri in the measure of today seems like a big village. Most of the photos taken from high places, the group of one layered and smooth-roofed houses…Like a black dot without the big squares and the boulevards( if we don’t consider the high trees next to the houses) houses next to each other. But in the city architecture consisted of the bent avenues and the boulevards within each other, you can see that they ate crossing in some big places. Hunat Kulliyah and Ulu Cami(Mosque), Sahabiye Madrasah and the other big mosques and kulliyahs,the castle of the city, the covered bazaar…Today there is nothing remaining back from the old city today apart from the historical works empied aroud.Even it is difficult to see the examples of the Kayseri houses to show the pattern of the Kayseri architecture.

Just here over the house and city relation, in Kayseri itself, to think the relationship between the traditional house architecture and the traditional Islamic city “Turkish House, Ottoman House” over the conceptualisation that Sedad Hakký Eldem contributed to the literature can function to understand the Kayseri house of the old Kayseri ( and the traditional Islam cities). House, both functionally and metaphorically is something to be thought about in the sense of understanding the tissue of our traditional cities. Since the traditional Ottoman house cannot be thought as a part of the Ottoman thought on the world and the life style,the relationship between the traditional Kayseri and the traditional Kayseri houses(Macit Imamoglu’s book with this name gives interesting examples and evaluates the approach neglecting the life style quite open to dispute) can give an important clue about the city analysis.

In the traditional cities the non-existence of the big avenues and the boulevards can be commented as the conscious choice instead of a deprivation. In Turkish the word house(ev) is carrying so wide meaning that even it shows an “ev/rensel” universal outlook. It was inevitable that the life style building the house according to the men and women sitting separate( haremlik-selamlýk)  should build the city in the base of the privacy. Since city was not independent from the life style and the system of values of the civilisation that founded it, traditional Turkish cities were as the enlarged views of the traditional Turkish houses. We see a world that the city was thought as a house and the public and private difference is having a meaning completely different. Our cities were mentioned as the private of the ones who lived there and they were built according to this base. The opening of the kulliya, covered bazaar,mosque instead of the outer appearance of the private life, cosmopolit streets and the big squares away from privacy and can be commented as the formulation of the house and privacy in the measures of the cities.It is meaningful that there are no city squares in the areas that the streets in the traditional cities are opened to the life just as the rooms called “life” in the traditional Ottoman houses. These two different areas to “open to the life”; in fact are the two signs of the life style and standing against the life.

The thought that is provoked by Heidegger who said “Language is the house of the existence”is: The city is not only consisted of the houses, but also the city is the “house of the privacy” as well. The soul of the traditional city cannot be understood without thinking the city as a house.

Ýlgili YazýlarDüşünce, English, Kültür