bruno taut and the program for the protection of monuments in turkey

METU BRUNO JFA TAUT 2010/1 AND PROTECTION OF MONUMENTS IN TURKEY DOI: METU 10.4305/METU.JFA.2010.2.2 

JFA 2010/2 15 

(27:2) 15-36 

Received: 13.10.2008, Final Text: 22.06.2010 

Keywords: Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni; Yeşil 

Türbe; restoration; national identity; 

monuments; national icons; Ministry of 

Education; Bruno Taut. 

1. An early version of this paper, presented 

at the XVII International Congress of 

Aesthetics held in Ankara at METU in July 

2007, has been recently published: Gasco 

(2008, 197-204). The main contribution of 

this revised and extended version is to 

sound the possibility to establish a series 

of links between the activity of Bruno Taut, 

the first restoration works in Turkey and 

the editing of monuments as national icons. 

This research moves from the results of 

my Doctoral Thesis (Gasco, 2007). I would 

like to express my deepest gratitude to all 

the persons who gave their support and 

help for the preparation of this work: Dr. 

Esin Boyacıoğlu (Gazi University) for her 

contribution as co-advisor of my thesis 

and for her precious advises during the 

compilation of this paper; Prof. Dr. İnci 

Aslanoğlu (METU) for her advice that offered 

me the chance to start the exploration of 

Taut’s involvement in early restoration in 

Turkey; the professor Ali Cengizkan (Middle 

East Technical University) for his valuable 

help and information, in particular for 

advising me to visit the library of the Turkish 

Historical Society where Taut’s original 

letter discovered by him is kept; Dr. Tanja 

Morgenstern and the staff of Akademie der 

Künste Baukunst Archiv in Berlin for their 

kindly permission to use Taut’s Turkish 

diary; Mrs. Ulrike Güldali of Ankara 

Goethe Institut for her help in reaching 

copy of Fisher’s article on Restauration; 

my friend Sakiko Niimi in Tokyo for her 

help in finding original version of Bruno 

BRUNO TAUT AND THE PROGRAM FOR THE 

PROTECTION OF MONUMENTS IN TURKEY (1937-38)/ 

THREE CASE STUDIES: 

ANKARA, EDİRNE AND BURSA 

Giorgio GASCO 

In 1933 the Ministry of Education set up a program for the protection of 

Turkish monuments that marks the beginning in the country of restoration 

works characterized by a scientific and systematic approach (1). Right at 

the beginning of the operative phase of the program, the German architect 

Bruno Taut was officially asked by the Ministry to give his professional 

opinion in three different episodes: the restoration of Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni 

in Ankara, the monitoring phase to evaluate the condition of several 

monuments in Edirne, the restoration of Yeşil Türbe in Bursa. 

The paper offers a critical reading of these episodes on the base of 

important documentary sources, in the attempt of re-constructing both 

their chronological sequence and historical background. The most valuable 

document this paper refers to is the İstanbul Journal, the diary in which 

Taut recorded the main episodes of his professional agenda in Turkey. 

Together with this primary source other evidences come from secondary 

sources included in various Turkish publications, especially the report 

published in 1935 by the Committee for the Protection of Monuments 

(Anıtları Koruma Komisyonu). In the case of the restoration of Yeşil Türbe 

in Bursa then the author had the chance to refer to a Taut’s unpublished 

text: Bericht über die Renovierung der Yeşil Türbe, the report Taut drew up in 

analyzing the monument. This is a clear evidence of the official character 

of this assignment and moreover it represents a source of a paramount 

importance not only to investigate the relationship between Taut and 

restoration principles but especially to re-formulate his professional status 

inside the operative structure of the Ministry of Education. 

These episodes offer a new angle from which is possible to evaluate the 

effort of the Ministry in setting the restoration program as a national project 

aimed at grounding the identity of the new state on its historical heritage. 

The editing of the monuments as national icons, prime strategy implied in 

Ministry’s policy, characterizes indeed the work agenda of the selected case 

studies and clears up the decision to make use of foreign experts’ opinion.

16 METU JFA 2010/2 

Taut’s Report on Restoration of Yeşil Türbe in 

Bursa. The document is in Iwanami Shoten 

Publishing House’s possession and it is 

depositated at Bruno Taut Memorial Hall in 

University of Creation in Tokyo, I thank both 

the institutions for their kind permission 

to use this document. People who worked 

on translations gave an extraordinary 

contribution. I wish here to thank all of them: 

professor Şemsa Gezgin for the translation of 

Macit Rüstü Kural’s article and Bruno Taut’s 

article Türk Evi, Sinan, Ankara, professor 

Elisabetta Garelli for the translation of Taut’s 

letter and his included essay Reiseendrücke 

aus Konstantinopel (30/09/1916, TTK, Ankara 

HEE 5767), Mss Maria Elisabetta Bier Gola, 

professor Esin Boyacıoğlu and professor 

Önder Aydın for the translation of excerpts 

from İstanbul Journal (Berlin, AdK, BTS 01- 

273), Bericht über die Renovierung der Yeşil 

Türbe in Bursa (Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten 

Publisher’s Archive, Iw 45), and Fisher’s 

article Über das Restaurieren. I wish to thank 

also professor Christopher Wilson for his 

evaluable contribution in the proof reading 

of the manuscript. 

2. At the beginning of his professional career, 

when he was still a training architect in 

Theodor Fisher’s office (1904, 1908) and short 

after when he moved to Berlin (1909, 1914), 

Taut, together with Franz Mutzenbecher, 

dealt with interior decoration and restoration 

works for two little village churches: 

Unterriexingen church, 1906 and Nieden 

church, 1911. See: Ausstellung der Akademie 

der Künste (1980, 266-7). 

3. For a complete account on Ministerial 

Program for Ancient Monument’s Protection 

see: Madran, E. (2002, 109, 126, 128). 

4. Taut’s Turkish diary is the main source to 

reconstruct both the operative details and the 

chronological sequence of the three episodes: 

in February and March 1937 he visited the 

Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni in Ankara; in January 

1938 he was in Edirne analyzing especially 

the complex of İkinci Beyazit’s complex; in 

September 1938 he went to Bursa to visit the 

Yeşil Türbe. See: İstanbul Journal, (AKB, BTS 

01-273, 10.11.1936-13.12.1938, 1,143). Original 

handwritten text is in the archive of Iwanami 

Shoten Publishing House in Tokio, Taut’s 

legacy (Iw 36). 

5. Kural (1944, 50-102). 

6. Bericht über die Renovierung der Yeşil Türbe 

in Bursa (ISA, Iw 45, 1938, 1-8). 

GIORGIO GASCO 

By this point of view this side of Taut’s professional activity in Turkey, 

until now quite ignored, turns to be essential in order to evaluate his role 

in the re-elaboration of monuments for the benefit of state ideology and 

his contribution on the topic right at the beginning of the construction of a 

restoration culture in Turkey. 

INTRODUCTION 

Glancing over the list of works that mark Bruno Taut’s professional 

biography, two very early assignments immediately draw our attention: 

the renovation works of two village churches carried out during first years 

of his practice (2), two marginal episodes quite unconnected with the body 

of his later oeuvre. During the last phase of Taut’s professional experience 

in Turkey from 1936 to 1938, these works are an unexpected chance to 

critically evaluate this unusual side of his career. 

In addition to the responsibilities of his prestigious governmental 

assignment in Turkey, Taut also devoted himself to the study of Turkish 

historical architecture. He was so keen about this topic that his passion 

was not confined to a personal interest only, but also drove him to deal 

with classical Ottoman architecture from a professional point of view. 

This aspect of Taut’s professional activity in early Republican Turkey, 

until now quite ignored, indeed offers the possibility to question his 

role from a different angle as architect in the service of the Ministry of 

Education (Maarif Vekâleti). Taut was officially asked by the Ministry to 

give his professional opinion about three important restoration projects 

that marked the beginning phase of the State Program for Monuments 

Protection (3): the restoration of the Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni in Ankara, the 

monitoring phase to evaluate the condition of different monuments in 

Edirne, and the restoration of the Yeşil Türbe in Bursa (4). 

This paper, providing general information on each of these three episodes, 

especially focuses on the last of these projects, the restoration of the Yeşil 

Türbe in Bursa. There are two important original sources concerning the 

project: the complete account of the restoration works edited by Macit 

Rüstü Kural, author of restoration project and the director of works (5) and 

Taut’s unpublished text, Bericht über die Renovierung der Yeşil Türbe (6). The 

latter document, eight pages of considerations Taut collected in analyzing 

the monument, is clear evidence of the official character of the assignment. 

Moreover, it represents a source of paramount importance to not only 

investigate the relationship between Taut and his restoration principles, but 

also to re-formulate his professional status inside the operative structure of 

the Ministry of Education. 

These episodes offer a new angle to evaluate Taut’s contribution to the 

Ministry of Education’s efforts in the construction of a national identity. 

Taut’s involvement as a foreign expert inside the Ministry’s agenda for 

the protection of monuments in fact, besides its concern with specific 

restoration matters, must be framed inside a broader context where the 

protection of monuments functions to create objects of national icons on 

display. This paper aims to stress Taut’s role in the re-shaping of a national 

past according to a Turkish identity grounded on the historical heritage of 

the country.

BRUNO TAUT AND PROTECTION OF MONUMENTS IN TURKEY METU JFA 2010/2 17 

7. Taut (1938a). 

8. Bozdoğan (2001, 250); Baydar (1993, 66-7). 

9. Bozdoğan (1997, 163). 

THE INSTITUTIONAL ROLE OF BRUNO TAUT AND THE 

RECOVERY OF THE PAST FOR THE GROUNDING OF TURKISH 

IDENTITY 

Taut’s activity in Turkey is known principally for the educational buildings 

he designed as the Head of the Architectural Office in the Ministry of 

Education, and for his book Mimari Bilgisi [literally, Architectural Knowledge, 

but usually translated into English as “Lectures on Architecture”] (7), 

his manifesto of theoretical discourse he developed as the Head of the 

Department of Architecture at the İstanbul Fine Arts Academy. Alongside 

this defined professional context, Taut’s involvement in the Ministry’s 

restoration program in a clear way completes a complex and specific 

profile that seems to fit the label of state architect. Taut was in fact fully 

devoted to fulfil his governmental duties, and his relations with the 

Ministry were exclusive and binding such that Taut would not and could 

not deal with any private practice or projects. In this way, his service as 

state architect discloses a quite open political meaning for both his design 

practice and his architectural discourse, turning out to be effective tools 

for the sake of state rhetoric. It is possible to refer to several reasons to 

support this statement: on the one hand, the running of his functions both 

in the Ministry of Education architectural office and in the İstanbul Fine 

Arts Academy Department of Architecture could not help conforming to 

the dictates of the government in accordance with the official character of 

his assignment. On the other hand, Taut’s ideas and principles matched the 

narratives of national ideology drawn up by the Ministry. The construction 

of a new national identity, pursued as a prime goal by the Ministry, from 

the 1930s onward, in fact started to be characterized by a multilayered and 

plural profile in which the concept of modern and traditional, and old and 

new co-existed (8). 

This close relationship between Taut’s search for a new path for modernity 

and Turkish Republican claims for a national identity is plainly disclosed 

by several topics included in his book Mimari Bilgisi. Taut’s culture/nature 

pair as a key concept to re-find the local roots of a community, the concept 

of continuity, his re-fashioned interest in regional architectural qualities, 

and above all the notion of a synthesis of tradition and modernity, all seem 

to echo the same dialectical opposition mediating inside a nationalistic 

ideology fostered by the Ministry of Education in those years, based on 

the historical interplay between a spontaneous support of modernist 

and progressive trends and a radical quest for cultural identity that 

distinguished the emerging nationalist politics in Turkey. 

Taut’s efforts in the construction of a national identity in architectural 

terms are also quite evident in his projects in Turkey. His education 

buildings clearly reflect an aim to construct an active dialogue between a 

modern architectural language and references to local tradition. As Sibel 

Bozdoğan has stated, Bruno Taut 

“was a meaningful choice for Turkey in the 1930s precisely because he was 

thoroughly ambiguous with respect to this profound dilemma. His legacy 

in Turkish architectural culture still alternates between equally powerful 

images of ‘Taut the modernist’ who taught rational, functional design to 

Turkish students, and ‘Taut the regionalist’ who had a deep reverence for 

Ottoman architecture and vernacular traditions” (9). 

Indeed, his position was quite ambiguous because he always avoided 

espousing any dogmatic idea. Taut strove to point out an architectural 

path that rejected both a blind obedience to International Style precepts

18 METU JFA 2010/2 

10. Taut (1938b, 93-8). 

11. Taut (1938b, 95). 

12. The graphic layout of La Turquie Kemaliste 

(issues published between 1934 and 1944) 

seems to testify a new elaboration of radical 

cultural approach of Republic’s first years, 

when the myth of an independent Anatolia 

embodied by Ankara, the core of patriotism, 

idealism and progress was displayed 

in opposition to İstanbul symbol of an 

imperialist past people wished to forget. 

Near to the end of thirties on the contrary 

past and future, tradition and modernity, 

new buildings and historical monuments 

became the dialectics oppositions Turkish 

national identity was settled by. 

13. Just to mention a few: in 1930 the Turkish 

Historical Society started a scientific research 

on Turkish History and Civilization whose 

historiographical focus was shifted from 

Ottoman to Central Anatolian Cultures 

(Seljuks, Hittites); the Society for Research 

on Turkish Language as from 1932 headed 

a linguistic research aiming at purifying 

Turkish from all foreign influences and at 

detecting its ancient Turkic roots of Central 

Asia; in 1936 Bela Bartok dealt with his 

Folk Music Research in Turkey with the 

support of the Ministry on the traces of old 

pentatonic folk music style in recent Turkish 

folk music; in 1934 in the İstanbul Fine Arts 

Academy Sedat Hakkı Eldem directed the 

Seminar on National Architecture based 

on an extensive documentation of Turkish 

vernacular buildings. 

GIORGIO GASCO 

and a sterile imitation of traditional-historical examples. In spite of this 

stiff opposition to any formalist-stylistic understanding of architecture, 

it was Taut’s definition of the strong connections of architecture with the 

local features of a place in terms of “national character” that, in the end, 

fascinated the audience at large in a country in search of a proper national 

style. Herein lies the paradox that characterizes the relationship between 

Taut and the construction of a Turkish national identity. Taut in fact often 

stated that “national character” should not be pursued as a main goal in 

design, clear evidence that he himself was not in search for a national style 

(although others were). Nevertheless, his discourse lent itself to be easily 

assimilated into the stream of state rhetoric. 

Clear evidence of this assimilation comes from an interview Taut gave to 

the monthly magazine “Her Ay” (10). In this interview, Taut was skilfully 

led by the interviewer, which is obvious from the article’s title (Türk Evi, 

Sinan, Ankara), to answer questions on the three basic and key-topics of 

Turkish nationalistic culture: the domestic vernacular tradition, the master 

pieces of classical Ottoman architecture designed by Sinan, and the ideals 

of modernity and progress as symbolized by the new capital. Taut actually 

clearly expressed his critical attitude towards nationalist tendencies by 

declaring his famous maxim in the central part of the interview: “All 

nationalist architecture is bad, but all good architecture is national” (11). 

The latent ambiguity of this sentence seems to be carefully edited in order 

to wink at the nationalist claims of the time. 

During Taut’s years in Turkey, the Turkish state propaganda continued 

to use the initial tempting images of progress and modernity that had 

distinguished the first phase of the modernization process (1923-1933) but 

at the same time began to attach a great importance to taking traditional 

elements into consideration, and moreover to stress the urgency of 

preserving the nation’s historical heritage. This latter aim discloses the 

strategic possibility to cast ancient monuments as national icons in order to 

embody the identity of the roots of the country. 

The same dialectic also characterized the publications of the Ministry of 

Education, as they were more and more involved in a restless propaganda 

activity. The palimpsests of such journals as La Turquie Kemaliste were 

effectively conceived on the basis of this two-fold idea of modernity. In 

those years, each issue of La Turquie Kemaliste displayed several meaningful 

images: the one, under the title Ankara Construit, fostered the construction 

of Ankara as a modern capital city (Figure 1), the other, under the title La 

Turquie: Pays de soleil de Beauté et d’Histoire, fostered both the landscape of 

the country and its historical-cultural heritage treasures (Figure 2). The 

Ankara Construit series, formed from architectonic collages displaying a 

futuristic city made from abstract and geometric buildings, symbolized the 

heroic and modern side of the Turkish nation. The La Turquie: Pays de soleil 

de Beauté et d’Histoire series, formed from classical composed photographs 

displaying landscape framed with monuments and fragments, symbolized 

the traditional and romantic side of the same nation (12). 

These images were skilfully used to embody the two souls representing the 

country’s identity; or, in other words, to display the two channels through 

which the national identity was under construction: the realization of the 

new and the recovery of the past. This latter aim especially surfaces to 

reconstruct a presumed authenticity that is able to be used as a catalyst 

element inside the definition of a Turkish identity with a more powerful 

appeal than simply the language of modernity.


Figure 1. Ankara Construit (La Turquie 

Kemaliste, n: 6, 1935). 

Figure 2. La Turquie: Pays de soleil de 

Beauté et d’Histoire (La Turquie Kemaliste, 

n: 6, 1935). 

14. Celal Esad Arseven (1875-1971) was 

professor of History of Architecture and 

Town Planning in the Fine Arts Academy 

in the period Taut was the head of the 

department of Architecture. His approach 

quite fits the ambivalence between past and 

future that distinguished the debate of the 

period. After having devoted himself to 

publication of several books on Turkish and 

Islamic Art History, in 1931 he published a 

text titled Yeni Mimari (Modern Architecture). 

Actually it was the Turkish version of Andre 

Lurcat’s L’Architecture (1929) and it included 

Arseven’s additions and annotations. See: 

Bozdoğan (2001, 159). 

15. The book was translated in French in 

1939: Arseven (1939). 

16. Arseven came up with the definition 

“Turkish Art” in 1909 for the first time. See: 

Arseven (1909). 

17. Ergut (2008, 168). 

18. Arseven (1939, 5). 

19. He tried to stress the difference between 

the art of Turks and the other near regions; 

according to him Turkish art was somehow 

“harmonious” and “simple” meanwhile the 

artistic expressions of Arabs for example 

were “extremely luxurious” or the Iranian 

ones were “overloaded with decorative 

fantasies”: Arseven (1939, 5). 

20. Arseven (1939, 5). 

21. Arseven (1939, 6). 

The Ministry of Education, through its several state departments, directed 

different research programs in order to re-master the past as an ideological 

support for the new nation-state (13). The common aim of all these 

programs was to select what, beside a vague idea of “the past,” could be 

defined as Turkish or at least could fit an idea of “Turkish-ness.” 

A valuable contribution to this aim was characterized by the studies 

in art history carried out by Celal Esad Arseven (14). His Türk Sanatı, 

published in 1928 (15), was the first attempt, in the field of Turkish art 

history, to establish unique and coherent evolutionary line and assemble 

several periods under the heading of “Turkish Art” (16). The assumption 

of his work, as Elvan Ergut has argued, “was the existence of a pure and 

uncontaminated ‘national’ art of the Turks” (17). As Arseven himself 

stated in the book: “Turks displayed alongside their history an art of great 

originality.” (18) 

The main aim of his text is to prove the originality of the artistic 

expressions of Turkish people alongside their history, especially defending 

its autonomy towards other artistic trends (19). Such a construction, in fact, 

was necessary to demolish a misunderstanding shared by the major part 

of art history books that regarded Turkish art just as a secondary school 

of Islamic art (20). Arseven actually accused Turkish people of lacking in 

critical perspective since for a long time they had never been interested 

in their own history, but points out that at the present time things were 

changing because: 

“The young Turkish Republic set by the great innovator Kemal Atatürk 

started as from the beginning to search for the roots of both its history and 

art.” (21) 

This quotation especially points out the nationalistic character of this 

rescue of historical roots and hints at the importance of state activity on this 

matter. At the bottom of this research lies a complex work of classification 

that stands out as a fundamental ideological base of Arseven’s study. He 

succeeded in reassembling different trends, forming a picture of great

20 METU JFA 2010/2 

22. Gabriel (1938, 11-9). Albert Gabriel (1883- 

1972) was a French architect and archeologist. 

He directed the Institut Francais d’Archeologie 

in İstanbul, his activity focused especially on 

the Islamic monuments of medieval Anatolia. 

23. Gabriel (1938, 12). 

24. Gabriel (1938, 12). 

25. Gabriel (1938, 13). 

26. Gabriel (1938, 13). 

27. Before the establishment of republican 

institutions protection interventions on 

monuments were managed by structures in 

connection with religious power (waqf). In 

1935 Waqfs were abolished and State charged 

of both control and direction of monuments. 

In order to manage those in Ottoman 

times were defined pious foundations 

(Islamic schools and other structures 

linked to mosques) an Official Department 

called Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü (Pious 

Foundations General Directorate) was 

established. See: Madran (2002, 107). 

28. ANITLARI KORUMA KOMİSYONU 

(1935, 10). 

GIORGIO GASCO 

complexity both from a geographical and temporal point of view, under 

a sole, autonomous and coherent current. Inside this classification, both 

Seljuk and Ottoman contributions are included as temporally limited signs 

of a wider expression labelled as “Turkish Art.” In general, Arseven’s 

Türk Sanatı is the first attempt to provide the idea of a Turkish National 

Architecture with a strong and clear historical basis. 

Alongside these attempts in institutionalizing the past, tradition and 

folk culture, the first scientific restoration works were performed as an 

effective tool in order to re-cast and re-shape the monuments of this 

supposed Turkish past. The first contribution of a national perspective in 

the discourse on restoration was given by Albert Gabriel in his essay on 

the restoration of the Turkish historical monuments (22). The beginning of 

this essay stresses the value and historical role of the Seljuk architecture. 

Moreover, Gabriel’s aim is to defend the Turkish paternity of such an 

artistic trend: 

“... since the 12th century and during the major part of the 13th century, 

both the rulers of the country as well as its citizens were Turks, there is no 

reason to attribute to others the paternity of such master works we are still 

admiring and since then have their name” (23). 

These considerations allow Gabriel to state that: “Actually, Seljuk 

architecture is a Turkish architecture” (24). He particularly pointed 

out how these monuments, especially funerary buildings (türbe) were 

unquestionable manifestations of a new aesthetic. Like Arseven, Gabriel 

too underlined the powerful effect of their simple silhouettes and the 

clear-cut essence of their design, recognizing in them the sign of an “extra- 

Mediterranean aesthetic” (25). In this way, Gabriel attempted to frame 

those artistic tendencies outside a typical Western sphere of influence. 

The latter part of Gabriel’s text focuses on a series of considerations about 

the protection of the national heritage. The first issue he calls attention 

to concerns the necessity to fix a set of methodological rules to guide 

restoration works in an effective and univocal way on a national level. 

In order to deal with this aim in the terms of a national project, the role 

of the state then assumes a prime importance for the coordination and 

management of the different activities involved (26). In particular, Gabriel 

stresses how a restoration project is the result of an integrated process 

that includes several operative steps: from survey to documenting the 

building’s structures and main spatial features, from careful cataloguing 

and recording of all the problematic issues to the preparation of detailed 

cost estimates. Gabriel’s central management and scientific approach 

indeed reflect the general features of the Turkish State Program for 

Monuments Protection, already set up in those years thanks to the activity 

of the Ministry of Education. The necessity to outline a general program 

to carry out restoration works in a scientific way surfaced as a prime task 

after 1930, the time after which the question concerning the protection of 

cultural assets became central in the Turkish cultural debate (27). 

PROGRAM FOR THE PROTECTION OF MONUMENTS AND 

EDITING OF MONUMENTS AS NATIONAL ICONS 

The official frame of the Programme for Ancient Monuments Protection 

was defined by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and approved by 

the committee of ministries on 28 June 1933 (28). The first act of this 

program was the establishment of a specific Committee for Monuments’


29. Madran (2002, 109). A first committee, 

with nearly same duties, had been already 

established in 1917, still in Ottoman times, 

but its responsibilities were restricted only 

to İstanbul municipality’s monuments. This 

committee was named Council for Ancient 

Monuments’ Protection (Muhafaza-i Asar-ı 

Atika Encümeni Daimisi) and its direction 

was entrusted to Halil Edhem Eldem at that 

time Head of both Imperial Museums and 

Fine Arts Imperial School (Sanayi-i Nefise 

Mekteb-i Alisi). Eldhem kept on holding 

a prime role in these questions even after 

Republic’s foundation. 

30. Madran (2002, 126-8). 

31. The results of this Committee’s work 

were published in 1935. ANITLARI 

KORUMA KOMİSYONU (1935, 11-6). 


(1935, 6). 

33. A specific office for the execution of 

these survey works (Rölöve Bürosu) was 

established in 1936 in the Fine Art Academy 

in İstanbul and it was set under the direction 

of Sedat Çetintaş. The operative structure 

of the program was then organized through 

the synergic activity between this office 

in İstanbul and the committee in Ankara, 

both under the control of the Directorate of 

Antiquities and Museums of the Ministry of 

Education. Ülgen (1946, 23). 

34. In 1935 was organized in Ankara an 

exhibition of the survey drawings of Sedat 

Çetintaş. The exhibition counted 50 drawing 

boards illustrating especially monuments 

in Bursa and Edirne. ANITLARI KORUMA 

KOMİSYONU (1935, 12). 

35. ANITLARI KORUMA KOMISYONU 

(1935, 15-6). 

36. It is not by chance that the major part 

of the minor repairing works concerned 

cleaning works on the façades of buildings or 

on their valuable decorative structures. 

Protection (Anıtları Koruma Komisyonu) (29) with the task of directing 

preliminary steps for the protection of monuments in Central Anatolia. 

The members of this Committee were Macit Rüştü Kural (architect), Sedat 

Çetintaş (architect), Miltner (archaeologist) and Schultz (photographer) 

(30). The activities of this committee were fully devoted to accomplish 

a methodological work that included photographic surveys, writing 

descriptive reports for each monuments listed and defining a detailing 

strategic plan including operative phases and economic analysis (31). 

The committee was entrusted by the Ministry of Education to accomplish 

this program and set to work immediately according to a three-year 

schedule (1933-1935). This preliminary phase of the program, mainly 

characterized by an extensive survey campaign, was completed with 

the publication of a detailed report in 1935. Results and evidence from 

this report give a broad picture of the efforts of the scientific team of that 

committee in the fulfilment of the challenging task of giving monuments 

back their prestige and dignity, defined in the report pages as a “mission 

for tomorrow” (32). This phase of work was carried out by the architect 

Sedat Çetintaş, appointed for preparing survey drawings of architectonic 

buildings, and by the German photographer Schultz, in charge of 

producing a complete photographic documentation for the purpose of 

classification and official registration of monuments and for the preparing 

of publications (33). 

The construction of this iconographic material was conceived to assure 

an immediate public reception of the historical heritage of the country 

(34), and turned out to be effective in order to put the past on display 

in the shape of a cultural-historical heritage shared by the nation. The 

committee drafted a broad agenda of initiatives to popularize this brand 

new version of the past, such as collaborating with the publishing network 

of the ministry to diffuse the results of their scientific works at large, the 

preparation of an illustrated map to visualize the historical and cultural 

richness of the country, and the editing of 3500 cards illustrating the 

monuments of the country coming alongside the idea of displaying and 

selling them in museums (35). The common aim of these initiatives, and 

in particular the latter ones, was to display the new face of monuments 

rescued from the state of neglect they faced in the recent past and re-cast 

them as the first cultural-historical assets of the Turkish nation (36). As 

might be expected, the report blamed the Ottoman Empire for this state of 

neglect and held up the new nation as an example of strong respect for the 

roots of its own past, a modern nation that celebrated its emerging culture 

in the protection and preservation of monuments as a sign of progress and 

civilization. 

The State Program for Monuments’ Protection stands as a demonstration 

of the recognized benefit, for the sake of national ideology, represented 

by the celebration of past heritage. Furthermore, this was the first time in 

Turkey that a restoration program was carried out on a scientific basis with 

the result that the protection of historical buildings became more organized 

and potentially more popular. As a result of this modern cultural policy 

pursued by the Ministry of Education, protection and restoration activity 

became the effective tool to edit the buildings of the past as national icons. 

The significance of antiquity, in fact, was transformed into a romantic value 

shared by people, a new opportunity to cast their emotional attachment to 

the national state.

22 METU JFA 2010/2 


(1935, 13-4). 

38. The Museum was precisely named as 

Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi (Museum of 

Anatolian Civilizations). 

39. Bayburtluoğlu (1991, 96). 

40. In the process of nation building the 

goal of the government was to construct a 

new Turkish identity based on a specific 

and autonomous past that was possible 

to display through a set of new symbols. 

The designated representation for this was 

neither Ottoman nor Greek-Roman rather 

Turkish historical roots were carefully recasted 

upon Ancient Anatolian Civilizations. 

41. The proposal actually dates back to 

1933 when, during the first congress of the 

Turkish History Association (TTK), Halil 

Edhem Eldem stressed the necessity of a 

specific and suitable place to exhibit and 

protect the findings coming from excavations 

in Hittite sites, at the time arranged in an 

open air place in Hacı Bayram. I. TÜRK 

TARİH KONGRESİ (1933, 564-5). 

Figure 3. Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni, Ankara, 

after restoration works (1940-1943) (Vakiflar 

Genel Müdürlüğü Archive, Ankara). 

Figure 4. Kurşunlu Han, Ankara, during 

restoration works (Bayburtluoğlu, 1991). 

GIORGIO GASCO 

In the period between 1933 and 1935 the scientific team’s activity focused 

on the repair of minor works (37), but in general the architect Macit Rüştü 

Kural, in charge of the execution of restoration works, dealt with the 

drawing up of detail cost estimates concerning the large interventions that 

characterized the following phase of the programme and included also the 

three case studies analyzed in the present article. They were brought to 

conclusion in the space of a decade and form the set of exemplary works 

that marks the beginning of a building restoration culture in Turkey. 

BETWEEN NEW CONSTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION: 

THE OLD BAZAR AND CARAVANSERAI OF ANKARA. 

One of the first interventions set aside to give the Turkish past strong 

roots was the restoration of the complex formed by the Mahmut Paşa 

Bedesteni and the Kurşunlu Han in Ankara, respectively the old Bazaar and 

Caravanserai of the city (Figure 3, 4). The reason behind this restoration 

was to provide facilities for a new archaeological museum intended 

to contain the large collection of the objects of Anatolian Civilizations 

unearthed from several excavations in Central Anatolia (38). This project 

fits to be analyzed according to an interpretative double-track: together 

with the aim of protecting an important cultural and historical heritage, 

the desire to establish a new museum, conceived as a “contemporary 

institution”, is one of the signs of Westernization efforts. The idea of a 

new museum to exhibit this collection as the best representation of the 

Turkish national past, was strongly fostered by Atatürk himself (39). This 

new museum had to be designed to celebrate a common and great past. 

As a direct consequence of this process of celebration, the opportunity 

of visualizing this same past in the rooms of this new space assumed the 

manifested intention of providing the Nation of a strong sense of shared 

heritage (40). The recent Ottoman past was erased, the remote one was 

exhumed in an attempt to settle the genetic characters of a cultural and 

artistic trend developed in Central Anatolia and kept alive through diverse 

transformations. The power of this evolutionary line as a means to ground 

the root of the new state can be set against the background of the strong 

ideological consistency of the young Republic. 

In 1936 Hamit Zübeyr Koşay, the Director of Culture at the time, suggested 

to restore Ankara Kurşunlu Han and Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni to provide 

a proper place for a new museum (41). He discussed this idea with the 

Minister of Education, Saffet Arıkan, who asked Bruno Taut, who at that


Figure 5. Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni, Ankara, 

before restoration works (Kural, 1944). 

Figure 6. Kurşunlu Han, Ankara, before 

restoration works (Bayburtluoğlu, 1991). 

42. Koşay (1979, 311). 

43. According to Koşay, Taut suggested to 

built a completely new building since this 

would have been the best way to invest the 

estimated large amount of money (50.000 TL). 

Koşay (1979, 311). 

44. The restoration project was drawn up by 

Macit Rüştü Kural who directed the works 

too. The contract for the execution of the 

work was assigned to the constructor Zühtü 

Başar. Bayburtuoğlu (1991, 101). Kural later 

in his account for the restoration works of 

Yeşil Türbe in Bursa, refers to Taut’s initial 

reluctance in accepting the project for 

Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni confirming Koşay’s 

evidence. Kural (1944, 96-7). 

45. “Museum: Alter Bazar und Han, mit Nazim 

bey angesehen. Nachher bei Semih und später mit 

prof. Roh(de) u. Landsberger. Geb Opposition 

gegen Restaurierung auf. Weil er sonst abgerissen 

würde.” İstanbul Journal (AKB, BTS 01-273, 

25/02/1937, 26). At the visit were present 

the Head of the Construction Office of 

Ankara, Arch. Semih Rüstem and two 

German archaeologists at the time teaching 

in Ankara University, Prof. Georg Rohde and 

Prof. Benno Landsberger. For information 

about their involvement in this project, 

Bayburtuoğlu (1991, 101). 

46. “Mit Minister, Cevat u. Arch. in Ruine 

Bazar: nur Bazar soll ausgebaut werden (gewölbe, 

fenster) übrige soll als Ruine Konserviert werden. 

Keine Neuaufbauten zerstörter teile!” İstanbul 

Journal (AKB, BTS 01-273, 03/03/1937, 27). 

time was involved in the design of the Faculty of Language, History and 

Geography in Ankara, to evaluate the condition of both monuments and 

to state his professional opinion (42). Koşay claims that at first Taut was 

opposed to the idea of restoring the complex in order to provide a space 

for the museum, preferring instead the construction of a completely new 

building (43). Only after visiting the site and according to the explanations 

given to him about the project’s lines, he changed his mind and expressed 

an opinion in favor (44). 

Taut visited the complex in February 1937. His entry in İstanbul Journal in 

relation to this episode seems to confirm Koşay’s version but at the same 

time offers a new angle to sound Taut’s sensitivity in this field: 

“Museum: inspection to Ancient Bazaar and to Han with Nazim Bey. Then 

with Semih Bey and later with professor Rohde and Landsberger. I desist 

from opposing restoration works. Otherwise [the building] will be smashed 

into pieces.” (45) 

From the images of the time, depicting the complex before restoration, 

it is possible to state that the structure was in a condition of complete 

ruin, especially the Bedesten (Figure 5, 6). Of the powerful vaulted 

structures, only lateral arches remained standing. Without an appropriate 

intervention, the building would have soon collapsed. Facing the site 

with the real condition of the building, Taut most probably realized the 

need to restore it as soon as possible and, even though he supported the 

construction of a new building, finally he agreed to the restoration project. 

Meanwhile, Taut meditated on the problem trying to figure out a personal 

suitable proposal. During a second inspection about one month later, in 

fact, he expressed to Cevat Dursunoğlu and a representative from the 

Ministry of Education his ideas about an alternative solution which sounds 

like a compromise between a strong decision to rebuild, deeply changing 

those spaces, and an attempt to save the ancient complex’s memory: 

“With the Minister and Cevat in Bazaar ruins: only the Bazaar has to be 

reconstructed (vaults, windows), the rest of ruins have to be preserved. No 

reconstruction of destroyed parts!” (46) 

The words of Taut in this case well express his conception on restoration 

quite oriented to defending the image of a supposed originality kept 

inside ruins. A similar theoretical approach already had addressed his 

work method in the restoration of the village churches referred to at the

24 METU JFA 2010/2 

47. Bruno Taut quoted in Maasberg (2002, 

213). 

48. For example the Ottoman masonry 

technique he used in the alternation of bricks 

and stone ashlars outside and in the cladding 

of turquoise tiles inside in order to integrate 

traditional stylistic elements with modern 

outlines of the buildings. 


50. The issue of the definitive settling for 

the Hittite art works was an important 

target in the committee’s work agenda. The 

construction of a provisional Hittite open 

air museum in the area of Haci Bayram 

Mosque in Ankara in fact formed part of the 

interventions realized by the committee in 


(1935, 14-5). 

51. The ten domes that compounded the 

hall were consolidated and basements 

were provided and set to locate the Hittite 

sculptures. Bayburtluoğlu (1991, 101). 


53. The works went ahead providing the 

museum with other exhibition spaces in the 

rooms adjacent to the central hall and with 

a separate area intended for offices and the 

direction in the Han. This second phase of 

the work ended in 1968 and for that time 

the museum gained its present arrangement. 

Bayburtluoğlu (1991, 101-2). 

54. Güterbock and Özgüç (1946). 

55. References to this school trip are 

also included in the memories of Sedat 

Çetintaş. Ödekan (2004, 35). Among many 

others colleagues in the İstanbul Fine Arts 

Academy, Celal Esad Arseven was one of the 

few to be in friendly relations with Bruno 

Taut. The common interest for historical 

architecture, Taut’s concern for Turkish 

architecture and the mutual teaching activity 

in the Department of Architecture, indeed 

encouraged their good terms. Taut’s Turkish 

diary offers several evidences about their 

conversations on different topics concerning 

teaching methods and programs and the 

study of antiquities (AKB, BTS 01-273, 

30/12/36, 9; 03/02/37, 22; 15/06/37, 50). 

GIORGIO GASCO 

beginning of this paper. Already in 1911, Taut stated the main principle 

that drove the restructuring works of Nieden Church in this way: 

“… to preserve old exactly like it is and to make new appear as new” (47) 

The reference to “the new” in this quotation actually displays an approach 

that goes beyond the simple romantic defence of ruins that could echo 

some of Ruskin’s ideas. Nieden Church in fact was not a true restoration 

but a re-design of the interior. The rule standing behind this work dictated 

not to imitate the past but to enrich it with the new soft and sensitive 

additions which were able to establish a good relationship between old and 

new. 

In particular, it appears clear how Taut’s ideas on the issue of conservation 

and especially the principles of his project for the Faculty of Language, 

History and Geography in Ankara (quite leaning towards a clever recovery 

of ancient masonry techniques) (48), were fundamental in making way 

for the Ministry of Education to ask for his opinion on a restoration 

project. Actually, at the beginning of the 1930s, studies and surveys 

on the possibility of establishing a new museum in Ankara had been 

started under the direction of the Ministry of Education. Among other 

professionals, Hermann Jansen and Ernst Egli had been involved in the 

preliminary phase of this project. In 1931 Jansen drew up a report and Egli 

sketched out a project. This preliminary phase of the work lasted until the 

end of the 1930s, but their proposal did not satisfy the authorities (49). The 

involvement in this restoration project of foreign architects, well known 

and respected in the country, did not depend so much, by a typically 

professional point of view, on specific skills, as much as on the chance 

to take advantage of their charisma as state architects in legitimating a 

method (scientific restoration) and an aim (the institutionalization of the 

past). 

The restoration of the Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni and the Kurşunlu Han in 

Ankara, although it was not actually scheduled in the committee agenda, 

was undertaken precisely following on the necessity, stressed by the 

committee in its report (50), of providing the collection of Hittite remains 

with a proper exhibition space. The restoration works, after a preliminary 

inspection phase in 1937 including Taut’s involvement, started in 1938 

according to a project by Macit Rüştü Kural. The works went on until 1945 

and concerned only the arrangement of the Bedesten’s central hall devoted 

to the display the largest sculpture pieces of the Hittite collection (51). 

This stage of work, apparently in line with Taut’s advice, did not include 

interventions in the other rooms of the Bedesten. As for the spaces of Han, 

they were used as temporary storage (52). In 1945, the central hall was 

ready and in 1948 the first exhibition was held (53). The rich collection 

displayed in the restored central hall of the Bedesten was organized by Prof. 

Güterbock who had published a guide of the Hittite statuary ensemble in 

1946 (54). The public opening of the Bedesten’s central hall 20 years before 

the works were eventually completed suggests the urgency of both setting 

a suitable stage for the Hittite collection and displaying the features of 

the hall’s vaulted ambiences to their original splendor. In the end, the 

requirements of a new and modern exhibition space took priority over 

the initial idea of carrying out the reconstruction of the old bazaar vaults, 

providing only protection works for the rest of the spaces.


56. “In Edirne. Dort im Europa Oteli Celal 

Esat. Nachher Nurullah u. der Z. Unterdirektor. 

Mit denen u. den ca. 25 Studenten beim Sen. 

Inspektor Gen. Kazim Dirik. Hat mir u. der 

Studenten immer Auto (bzw. Camion) gestellt, 

war am Vormittag bei Besichtigung mit uns. 

Wünscht Gutachten!” İstanbul Journal (AKB, 

BTS 01-273, 21/01/1938, 92). 

57. ESKİ ESERLERİ SEVENLER KURUMU 

(1939, 3). This publication refers to the 

outcoming of a congress held in April 3rd 

1939 in which the Commission presented a 

complete report on the activity delivered as 

from 1935, year of its establishment. 

58. In 1935 Türk Tarih Kurumu (Turkish 

History Association) promoted a research 

preliminary project aiming to cataloguing 

monuments’ condition in Ankara, İstanbul, 

Bursa, Izmir and Edirne. Project’s 

supervision was entrusted to Association’s 

director, Afet İnan, and to Imperial 

Archeological Museums’ ex director Halil 

Edhem Eldem. Madran (2002, 151-2); İnan 

(1943, 39-51). Türk Tarih Kurumu, under 

Halil Edhem Eldem’s supervision, kept 

devoting itself in following years to a 

systematic reading of Turkish history 

and of its architectonic heritage. In 1937 

Turkish History second congress was held. 

Organized by Türk Tarih Kurumu and by 

Ministry of Culture it was precisely given 

up to this ambitious cataloguing project. 

Saffet Arıkan, Ministry of Culture, and Halil 

Edhem Eldem held respectively the role of 

chairman and vice-chairman of congress’s 

scientific committee. See: La Turquie Kemaliste 

(21-22) 1937, special issue given up to II 

Turkish History Congress (20-26 September 

1937). The presence of Celal Esad Arseven 

too is worth to be taken into consideration. 

In former time in fact he held official roles in 

monument protection’s field. In 1917, as head 

of İstanbul’s Kadiköy district, he took part of 

the first committee for Ancient Monument 

Protection directed by Halil Edhem Eldem. 

Alsaç (1992, 23). 

59. İstanbul Journal (AKB, BTS 01-273, 

21/01/1938, 93-4). 

60. “Angesehen: Die Selimige von Sinan. 

Enttäuschung, nach dem Sinan zugeschrieben, 

Reklameaussspruch. Die Suleimenige ist in jeder 

Hinsicht weit überlegen: Aussenkomposition, 

Silhouette, Innenraum, Details etc. Bei 

Selimige mancher direct schlecht, z.B. seitl. 

Aussenfront.- Hübsch Hof der angrenzenden 

Medrese mit Zimmern. - Bei Selimige Tendenz 

zur „Stadtkrone“; viell. daher Sinans angebliches 

Selbstlob.-“ (AKB, BTS 01-273, 21/01/1938, 

93). 

61. Bruno Taut to Ignote (TTK, HEE 5767, 

30/09/1916, 7). The typewritten letter 

includes Reiseeindrücke aus Kostantinopel 

(Impressions of the Trip to Constantinople) 

Taut later published in “Deutsche Levante- 

Zeitung”, 19, 1916, 735-37. This letter has 

been analyzed by Prof. Ali Cengizkan who 

was the first to notice the document among 

the archive items of the Turkish History 

Association; see: Cengizkan (2002, 29-35). 

DELEGATION OF İSTANBUL FINE ARTS ACADEMY AND 

THE MONUMENTS PROTECTION PROGRAM IN EDİRNE 

In January 1938, Taut took part in a school trip to Edirne together with 

his colleague Celal Esat Arseven, his assistant Şinasi and a group of 25 

students (55). The day after their arrival there was a meeting with different 

state officers, after which Taut was asked to draw up a report on different 

works: 

“In Edirne. There in Europa Oteli with Celal Esat. Then with Nürullah and 

the Vice-Director. With them and with ca. 25 students to Senior-Inspector 

General Kazim Dirik. We and students again with car (as a matter of facts 

a Camion) given us by him [who] in the morning was with us during the 

inspection. He wants a report!” (56) 

Amongst others, the most important person here is General Kazim Dirik. 

At that time, he was posted as the Senior Inspector for the Thrace Region 

(the area of Turkey where Edirne is located) and was the Head of the 

Committee for the Protection of Monuments of Edirne, which from 1935 

was devoted to the protection of the historical buildings of that region (57). 

Dirik had the ultimate responsibility for both restoration interventions and 

archaeological surveys that were going to be undertaken in that region (58). 

His presence among the group and above all his demand for a report from 

Taut give to the episode an official value that allows us to consider the 

visit a formal inspection and more than a simple study trip with students. 

Moreover, this evidence allows the connection of this trip with the agenda 

itself of this commission. 

The visit to Edirne was full of tours and suggestions. The group visited, 

amongst other monuments, the Selimiye Mosque constructed by Sinan, the 

Üç Şerefeli Mosque, the Caravanserai, the Gazi Mihal Mosque, Yıldırım Mosque 

and the Complex of Beyazıt II (59). Taut was apparently disappointed by 

Selimiye, recognizing its common features with his 1919 Stadtkrone project, 

he praised Sinan: 

“Remarkable: Selimiye by Sinan. Disappointment. Suleymaniye is in any 

case superior: exterior composition, silhouette, interior, details, etc. Selimiye 

has something ugly, for example external part of lateral façade. Nice: 

the court of the nearby Medrese with rooms. Selimiye conformation as a 

“Stadtkrone” kind of; it asks for a praise to Sinan.” (60) 

Taut was intrigued by the architectural forms of Ottoman mosques: their 

outline displaying sequences of domes actually reminded him of the 

pyramidal feature of his project for the Stadtkrone. Already in his very first 

visit to İstanbul in 1916 Taut was fascinated by the specific arrangement of 

mosques alongside the outlines of İstanbul’s hills: 

“… the outline [of a Mosque] from a distance seems like the pyramid’s one 

distinguished by a manifold and lively silhouette and signed by elongated 

minarets. Upon hills stand like crowds the big mosques…” (61) 

The Selimiye Mosque stands on a huge esplanade and has its entrance 

façade covered by a bazaar structure, so that its general appearance is 

quite different from the İstanbul Mosques that Taut preferred. This could 

account for Taut’s disappointment and his preference for the Suleymaniye 

Mosque. 

Besides these formal issues, the analogy between Ottoman mosques and 

the Stadtkrone for Taut figures on a deeper concept: the social meaning of 

architecture. Buildings in the Stadtkrone were symbols for a community’s 

political and spiritual values. For this reason, both the Stadtkrone and

26 METU JFA 2010/2 

Figure 7. İkinci Beyazıt Külliyesi, Edirne, 

general plan of the complex (Kuban, 2007). 

Figure 8. Taut’s sketch of İkinci Beyazıt 

(İstanbul Journal, AKB, BTS 01-273, 

21/01/1938, 94). 

GIORGIO GASCO 

its community constructions would be the direct transposition of a 

society’s form. Taut perceived Ottoman mosques’ great complexes as a 

manifestation of his former ideas. They were real community places where 

all the activities of a Muslim society occurred. In Mimari Bilgisi, speaking 

about Turkish mosques in the chapter “Construction,” Taut claimed: 

“Peacefulness mosque offers to our soul does not depend on religious 

spirituality but on artistic spirit our sense of proportion trusts in.” (62) 

Visiting the İkinci Beyazıt Mosque (63), Taut dwelled with a vivid attention 

upon the problem of axis. In this case, Taut was caught by the features of 

the interior space, especially in account to the entrance’s paths: 

“İkinci Beyazit: outside of the city among villages. Big building with a lot 

of secondary constructions. Interesting: the problem of axis, a deviation 

between marble door and entrance to the courtyard. Why is the courtyard 

entrance out of axis (as usual in all the mosques)? Big shift of the portal in 

the portico at the court area of both sides. It’s interesting for the exactitude 

in axis’ diversion at courtyard’s walls. Very powerful game of asymmetry in 

the courtyard of Hospitals: hall of patients, central dome with niches and the 

ring structure of rooms between them.” (64) 

Taut was intrigued by the lateral and asymmetric disposition of the 

entrance door, a particular solution subverting the courtyard’s axial 

arrangement. In this case, the axis is overturned by a diagonal gap between 

two entrances – one leading to the courtyard, the other to the prayer hall. 

Taut carefully noticed how this deviation of the rules of symmetry was 

determined with precision. But what mainly captured his interest was the 

complex of Hospitals. He was so struck by the sequence of these coordinate 

spaces and by the asymmetrical relationship between their accesses and the 

courtyard’s entrance (Figure 7) that he recorded this feature in a sketch he 

drafted together with his comments. (Figure 8) (65). 

The introduction of carefully controlled deviations inside a symmetric 

arrangement is one of the strategies of composition in Ottoman architecture 

in which Taut was interested from the beginning. The idea of following a 

method to overturn symmetry actually became a peculiar feature of Taut’s 

projects in Turkey, for both planimetric layouts and elevations. In his 

Mimari Bigisi, Taut defines this strategy as “Mastery of Asymmetry” (66).


62. Taut, B. (1938a, 153). 

63. The complex included the Mosque 

and Kulliye (a complex; a cluster of halls 

with different functions organized around 

courtyards). 

64. “Ikinci Beyazit: Weiter ausserhalb der Stadt 

zwischen Dörfern. Grosse Anlage mit vielen 

Nebenbauten. Interessant: Achsenfrage, Knicker 

zwischen Mauerportal u. Hofeingang. Warum 

(wie bei allen Moscheen) Seitenhofportale ausser 

Achse? Grosse Portalverschiebung im Portikus 

Zeichnung *) am Gerichtsraum, auf beiden 

Seiten. Interessant bei aller Genauigkeit die 

Achsenabweichungen an Hofwand.” İstanbul 


65. (AKB, BTS 01-273, 21/01/1938, 94). 

66. Taut, B. (1938a, 270). 

67. “Mit Celal 2. Prinzip für Altertumsstudien: 

Kopieren verboten!” İstanbul Journal (AKB, 

BTS 01-273, 21/01/1938, 95). Most probably 

the second principle, Taut here refers to, 

has to be put in relation with the set of 

restoration’s principles defined during the 

first International Restoration Congress 

held in Athens in 1931. Short after with the 

publication of Athens’ Restoration Chart, this 

set of principles was established in order to 

address restoration works on international 

level. 

68. According to a similar attitude he carried 

on his first interventions in the German 

churches at the end of tens. In that case 

Taut concentrate on the recovery of both 

traditional elements and regional characters 

of the place especially focusing on the 

chromatic value of those spaces. Speidel 

(1992, 127-9). 

69. “Gesichtspunkte für Gutachten: Keine 

Bäumchen in Vorplätzen pflanzen. Zement 

verbieten, alle Kitschbemalungen weiss 

überstreichen, bei Selimige alte Bemalung 

hervorholen, wenn möglich, spezielle Feinheit 

Mauer Yildirim cami schonen, Vorsicht 

bei Steinwahl (Kapitele Vorhof Selimiye), 

Karawanserei bes. erhaltenswert.” İstanbul 


70. ESKİ ESERLERI SEVENLER KURUMU 

(1941, 3-9). 

71. ESKİ ESERLERI SEVENLER KURUMU 

(1941, 4-5). 

Even if this episode, unlike the previous one, is not directly connected 

with effective restoration works, the personal comments and observations 

Taut recorded in his diary offer the opportunity to understand his way 

of studying historical buildings. Taut never approached them with an 

amateur gaze. On the contrary, he possessed quite a critical focus on the 

subject. It is possible to argue that for Taut historical buildings were not 

simply monuments to admire but a sort of evidence in constructed forms of 

an ancient wisdom with the power to point out a compositional procedure 

still topical. n this way, these buildings were animate elements proper both 

to establish interesting connections with more recent ideas (as in the case of 

Selimiye in which he perceives a Stadtkrone trend) and to grasp fruitful cues 

for design approaches (as in the case of the axis deviation in the Complex 

of Beyazıt II). 

Nevertheless, at the end of the Edirne visit, talking with Celal Esad, Taut 

expressed his theoretical position in relation to restoration as follows: 

“ With Celal the second principle for studies on Antiquity: it is forbidden to 

copy!” (67) 

Principally, Taut always kept away from imitative interventions, 

avoiding the pretense of reproducing both ancient techniques and 

materials. According to him, these attitudes fell unavoidably into kitsch 

manifestations because it was impossible to imitate ancient craftwork skill 

with modern technical means. In any case, new interventions had to be 

pointed out and kept distinct from original old features (68). 

On the way back to İstanbul, Taut recorded some ideas for the report he 

was asked to draw up. These short but precise annotations testify to Taut’s 

sensitivity in relation to the study of antiquities: 

“Important points for report: no planting little trees in open spaces in front 

of the buildings, avoiding use of concrete, covering all the kitsch colours 

with white paint, in Selimiye showing up old tint, if it’s possible preserve 

the special refinements of Yildirim Cami’s wall, paying attention in choosing 

stones for capitals of Selimiye’s atrium, and this is particularly important for 

the Karavansaray.” (69) 

Part of the works to the monuments Taut visited in February 1938 

were then begun and completed in 1940. A complete account of these 

interventions is included in the report that the local branch of the 

ministerial committee, under the direction of the General Kazim Dirik, 

published in 1941 (70). Together with some minor repairing interventions, 

real restoration works were also carried out, especially the Caravansarai 

and the Ruştem Paşa Han (71). In spite of the small character of these 

interventions and of the local/peripheral nature of the context, the results 

of the activity of the committee in Edirne and the Thrace Region stand as 

one of the best examples among the works in the agenda of the Ministerial 

Program for the Protection of Monument, at least as for the number and the 

quality of buildings involved. In line with the priorities set by a ministerial 

report edited in 1935, the Edirne local committee’s report also gives 

particular emphasis to the urgency of publishing books and other material 

concerning these realized works, in the attempt to generate an immediate 

public diffusion of a local heritage finally rescued from the state of neglect 

and re-edited in the form of a national heritage.

28 METU JFA 2010/2 

Figure 9. Yeşil Türbe, Bursa (La Turquie 

Kemaliste, n: 29, 1939). 

72. İstanbul Journal (AKB, BTS 01-273, 17- 

18/09/1938, 140). Evidences on this episode 

are included also in: Kural (1944, 89-96). 

73. Bericht über die Renovierung der Yeşil Türbe 

in Bursa (ISA, Iw 45, 1938, 1-8). With this 

report Taut gives a quite detailed analysis 

of the monument’s main features, by 

organizing text in six paragraphs focused on 

a specific issue each: Türbe in city‘s context, 

Sample of tiles external coating, What have to be 

done, Precautions in concrete‘s use, The Garden, 

The Interior. 

Figure 10. Yeşil Türbe, Bursa, drawing by 

Leon Parvillée (Parvillée, 1864). 

Figure 11. Yeşil Türbe, Bursa, image at the 

time of the 1904 restoration (Kural, 1944). 

GIORGIO GASCO 

TAUT ON RESTORATION: PRINCIPLES AND IDEAS FROM 

BERICHT ÜBER DIE RENOVIERUNG DER YEŞIL TÜRBE IN BURSA 

On 17 September 1938, nearly two years after his arrival in Turkey and 

only a few months before his unexpected death, Taut visited Bursa (72) 

on behalf of the Minister of Culture Saffet Arıkan, together with his 

colleague Hillinger to express his expert opinion and to write a report on 

the restoration works of the Yeşil Türbe. Taut accomplished this assignment 

completing an eight-page document under the title: Report on the Restoration 

of Yeşil Türbe (Bericht über die Renovierung der Yeşil Türbe) (73). 

In 1935 Macit Rüştü Kural, head of the Committee for Antiquities’ 

Protection, drew up a list of buildings in need of immediate interventions 

including 35 monuments from Central Anatolia. Among these the Yeşil 

Türbe of Bursa was catalogued as an urgent work. The restoration of the 

Yeşil Türbe inside the agenda of the Ministerial Program for Protection 

of Historical Heritage emerged as one of the most symbolic and crucial 

interventions in portraying the roots of Turkish identity (Figure 9). 

Macit Rüştü Kural then undertook the appointment of directing this 

restoration work. As he stated in the complete account published about the 

restoration (74), this mausoleum had lost much of its original magnificence 

because of water penetration that had endangered the amazing coating 

of green-blue glazed ceramic tiles (75). In particular, the monument was 

losing its effect based on the characteristic turquoise colour of its external 

coating because, in most of the damaged areas where original tiles came 

off, new tiles had been used with the aim of emulating the matchless 

qualities of original ones. These new interventions were the result of 

previous restoration works carried out at the end of the nineteenth and 

at the beginning of the twentieth century (Figure 10, 11) (76). From 1937, 

during preliminary studies, it clearly appeared that the most controversial 

matter of the whole restoration was to answer the problem posed both by 

the protection of the original ceramic tiles’ glaze conditions, in order to 

save them from further damage, and the use of coherent solutions in those 

areas that had lost their coating. Due to this impasse, the presence of a 

foreign expert to evaluate the situation turned out to be necessary (77).


74. Kural (1944, 50-102). 

75. The original tiles had been produced in 

İznik during the XIIIth century. At the time 

in which Taut visited the Türbe there was 

no atelier in the whole Turkey still able to 

produce tiles of the same quality. Even today 

it is impossible to imitate both the tone and 

the consistence of their glaze coating. 

Figure 12. Yeşil Türbe, Bursa, panoramic 

view (Kural, 1944). 

76. This first restoration intervention on 

the Türbe was carryed on after the big 

earthquake that leveled Bursa in 1853. On 

that occasion tiles produced in Kutahya 

ateliers were used. French architect 

Leon Parvillée was assigned to complete 

this restoration in 1863 by the Ottoman 

Government. The works were carried on 

under the supervision of the Imperial 

Commissary Ahmed Vefik Efendi. Parvillée 

(1864, 4). A second restoration work was 

carried on in 1904 by Asım Kömürcüoğlu at 

the time a training architect in the office of 

Kemalettin Bey. Kural (1944, 71). 

77. The report the Committee for Antiquities’ 

Protection (Anıtları Koruma Komisyonu) 

submitted to the Ministry in 1935 referred 

expressly to the possibility to involve foreign 

experts either in report drawing or in site 

visits. The same report included a financial 

program providing for a money supply 

kept to cover these experts’ travel expenses. 

Madran (2002, 108). 

78. Medina Lasansky focused on this specific 

issue exploring the Nationalistic aim of 

restoration works in Italy during Fascist 

Regime. Lasansky (2004, 322-3). 

79. “Die Yeşil Türbe unterscheidet sich insofern 

von den meisten türkischen Türben, als sie das 

Stadtbild der Stadt Bursa weithin beherrscht. Sie 

steht oberhalb der Yeşil Cami, ihr Baukörper ist 

höher und ausserdem wie ein Turm von allen 

Seiten zu sehen. Diese Wirkung der Yeşil Türbe 

wird durch die sehr starke Farbengebung mit 

blauen Kacheln betont. …Das grüne Bursa 

bekommt durch diese leuchtend blau-grüne Türbe 

eine Note, die nicht wegzudenken ist.“ Bericht 

über die Renovierung der Yeşil Türbe in Bursa 

(ISA, Iw 45, 1938, 1). 

80. (ISA, Iw 45, 1938, 3). 

81. “Bei der Renovierung der Yeşil Türbe muss 

man an 2 Gesichtspunkte denken, und zwar 1.) 

an den Besucher der Türbe selbst, der in der Nähe 

ihre Architektur studiert und 2.) an die Wirkung, 

die die Türbe im Landschafts und Stadtbild 

ausüben muss. Für alle, die in Bursa leben und 

Bursa besuchen, ist die stark grün-blaue Farbe 

eine Selbstverstandlichkeit. Infolgedessen muss 

dieser Eindruck erhalten bleiden.“ (ISA, Iw 45, 

1938, 5). 

Hence, Taut’s involvement acquires a precise ideological value. His 

advocation of the country’s vernacular tradition in order to justify the 

project of modernity in a local context should have especially performed 

quite an authoritative reference, allowing his discourse to be used as 

an ideological base in the Ministerial Program of Preservation. Having 

Taut write a report on the restoration’s topics assured the Commission’s 

works an international emphasis that, from the beginning, had shaped 

the construction of the new Turkish identity together with the forces of 

nationalism. 

Bruno Taut constructed his report around one crucial issue: the 

visualization of the past resulting from its construction as a heritage that is 

necessary to safeguard. This process of visualization of both the past and 

tradition became the perfect tool to turn monuments into national icons for 

public consumption (78). At the beginning of the report, Taut seems to deal 

with this aim of shaping a collective past, stressing the importance of the 

monument in the context of the city and in relation to its visual perception: 

“This türbe (mausoleum) stands out from the major part of Turkish tombs, as 

far as it overlooks even from a distance the image of the city of Bursa… Its 

construction is like a tower; it may be seen from all sides. This impression is 

emphasized by its wall’s vivid colour due to turquoise tiles… Green Bursa 

achieves [being green] thanks to this turquoise türbe’s unique distinguishing 

mark that is impossible to give up.” (79) 

The starting point for Taut’s considerations is the visual impact of the 

monument within the urban environment of Bursa (Figure 12). Although 

he states that it is impossible to achieve the same handicraft glaze tiles 

after 500 years and to position them with the same endurance of past times 

(80), he still stresses the necessity to safeguard the general impression of 

the monument, re-establishing its image more than its material features. 

He discusses the problem from two different angles: on the one hand 

dwelling on the close gaze of the tourist visiting the monument, and on 

the other hand focusing on the larger picture of the panoramic view (81). 

For both kinds of gaze, the tone of the turquoise colour is a fact generating 

a unique emotion that for Taut is worth preserving. Here, he refers to two 

kinds of public represented by the couple visitor/observer that includes 

both tourists and Bursa’s citizens. This approach fits with the aim of refashioning 

the historical image of both the building and the site as symbols 

for the Turkish nation. In fact, the promotion of cultural sites, as an integral 

element in the process of visualization of monuments, displayed the prime

30 METU JFA 2010/2 

82. Conrads and Sperlich (1962, 44-5). 

83. “Zunächst werden von den Mauern 

alle Kacheln entfernt, die nicht alt sind. Die 

übrigbleibenden alten Kacheln muss man 

durch hydraulischen kalk besser befestigen. 

Sodann verputzt man alle Flächen, die keinen 

kachelbelag haben. Es wird das die Mehrzahl 

aller Flächen sein, und zwar vollständig die 

Flächen nach Süden, Südesten und Südwesten. 

Um für die allgemeine grosse Wirkung der 

Türbe und fürihre Fernwirkung den bisherigen 

Eindruck zu erhalten, würde man mit einem 

der modernen Mineralanstriche weiterkommen 

als mit der Nachahmung der alten Kacheln. 

Da die alte Glasur matt war, so halte ich es 

für durchaus möglich, beispielsweise mit den 

Keim’schen Mineralfarben genau denselben 

Eindruck der Fernwirkung zu erreichen, wie 

ihn die alten Kacheln bieten. Da, wor früher die 

reichen Frieskacheln waren, würde ich einen 

entsprechenden grauen Ton empfehlen, damit der 

allgemeine architektonische Eindruck der Türbe 

sichergestellt ist.“ Bruno Taut, Bericht über die 

Renovierung der Yeşil Türbe in Bursa (ISA, Iw 

45, 1938, 5-6). 

GIORGIO GASCO 

goal to accentuate the “Turkish” character of the towns throughout the 

whole country. The “Turkish” character of Bursa is symbolically recalled 

by the Türbe’s turquoise outline that stands out from the landscape and at 

the same time is stored in the cladding of the original İznik tiles. 

Taut recognizes that the mausoleum has a strong iconic value, which is able 

to turn it into a landmark. Beyond its function as a tomb, as a monument 

built to keep the deceased’s memory, Taut’s reading privileges a more 

abstract symbolic role: the building becomes the sanctuary of the collective 

memory of the country. This shift from the classical idea of the monument 

to the unconventional interpretation of the building as a structure 

functional to the display of the İznik tile coating’s fragments allows the 

Türbe to be a sort of pavilion to exhibit the past. It does not seem so rash 

to imagine that in the Yeşil Türbe Taut detected some echoes of the idea 

of “fantastic architecture” that sprung from his Glashaus built at the 1914 

Cologne Werkbund Exposition. The outline itself of the Glashaus somehow 

revealed an oriental taste, which does not appear so strange considering 

the emphasis Paul Scheerbart has for orient and oriental mysticism in 

his Glasarchitektur, the text he dedicated to Bruno Taut. Furthermore, a 

similar astonishing effect, due to a space emerging out of the interplay of 

light and colour (82), seems indeed to occur in the feature of the Türbe: it 

is possible to recognize a similar tension between the striking outline of 

the construction and the multi-sensory experience offered by the specific 

features of its glaze tiles. In the central part of the report Taut provides a set 

of advice to keep and to protect the two ends of such a tension: 

“First of all, the new and incongruous ceramic tiles must be removed. The 

old ones must be stabilized by the use of hydraulic lime and the walls that 

lost their tiles must be plastered. This concerns a major part of the walls, 

the whole south, south-east and south-west sides. In order to preserve the 

Tomb’s present appearance, for its both close and distant impressions, it 

could be possible to achieve a good result by employing a modern metallic 

paint instead of using new ceramic tiles, which are badly reproducing old 

ones. Taking into account that tiles’ old glazed surfaces were opaque, as 

for me with “Keim mineral paints” it is possible to successfully reproduce 

this impression of opacity from a distance. In order to enhance the Türbe’s 

general architectonic impression, I advise to put ash colour clay where rich 

frame tiles were once in order to ensure the Tomb’s architectonic general 

impression. It is unquestionably difficult to have the same old colour by 

using plaster; in order to have required strength on the other hand, his price 

would increase. Nevertheless, in relation to the perception of the building 

from a distance, it is possible to achieve a better result than before if colours 

are tested and their shades are carefully determined. The sightseer, going 

through the garden, will notice, of course, the difference between old tiles 

and additional coloured plaster. But, in this way the building’s reality will 

be manifested as much as the old has not been touched and the new points 

out itself just as it is.” (83) 

Taut here suggests a bold and sophisticated alternative to the editing of 

the monument according to imitative criteria that had distinguished the 

previous phases of restoration. In that case, restorers looked at the original 

tiles as the authentic element worth to be imitated in order to ground the 

identity of the monument both with a material and symbolic point of view. 

Taut’s interpretation of the authenticity of the monument instead focuses 

on a specific element of those original tiles: the turquoise colour of their 

glaze. Actually, this blue-green colour is precisely the distinguishing mark 

of the monument (Yeşil Türbe = Green Tomb) and of the city itself (“Green 

Bursa”). But at the same time this particular colour becomes the suitable


84. Much of fifteenth century Turkish tile 

production was represented by tiles with 

monochrome glaze of a turquoise-green 

colour produced by a lead-alkali-silica 

composition of the glaze. Henderson and 

Raby (1989, 124). 

85. With the restoration of Unterriexingen 

church especially Taut for the first time 

designed a colourful interior allowing 

the colour of the architecture to become 

autonomous. Speidel (1992, 127). 

86. Speidel (1992, 129). 

87. Bruno Taut (Glas) “Kosmische 

Farbenliebe”, quoted in White. (1985, 117). 

88. Keim Mineral Paints was founded in 

1878 by A. W. Keim in Bavaria and it is 

still today a renowned firm of silicate paint 

systems. Mineral paints comprise a water 

borne potassium silicate paint binder with 

mineral fillers, such as feldspar and naturally 

occurring inorganic earth oxide colour 

pigments. When applied onto a mineral 

substrate the binder soaks into it and forms a 

microcrystalline bond to it. Microcrystalline 

structure maintains the vapour permeability 

of the substrate but prevents the ingress of 

driven rain. These type of paints are really 

suitable to provide long-term protective 

and decorative finishes for renders subject 

to harsh climate conditions. In the specific 

case of Bursa they would have been effective 

to oppose water filterings and would have 

allowed to obtain both the right shade 

of green colour thanks to their mineral 

composition. 

89. They started to co-operate since 

1905 working together in Fisher’s office. 

Mutzenbecker was a decorator very skilled 

especially in wall painting and a talented 

graphic designer. In architectural field 

he worked as colour adviser proposing a 

series of decorative paintings and colours to 

different architectural offices among them 

Taut and Hoffmann’s one. Maasberg (2002, 

214). 

symbolic element to recall the ancient origins of Turkish identity, since 

it was the result of the 15th century Ottoman fritware technology that 

artisans of İznik inherited from the thirteenth century Seljuk tradition (84). 

What Taut proposed in this case was the recovery of this colour, in the 

attempt to re-establish the expressive features of its turquoise tone. The 

aim was to give the colour an autonomous function inside an architectonic 

body, as he had already done for the restoration of the Nieden Church (85). 

In those early years, Taut was interested in the possibility of what could be 

achieved with colour variations of refracted light, as understood from his 

attempt to “make colour in architecture a theme of its own” (86). In one of 

his Crystal Chain Letters, Taut wrote: 

“The colours that we put on the walls (even if the walls are not made from 

glass) are its issue, our discourse with the depth from whence it comes ...” 

(87) 

The peculiar goal of Taut in this case was to move the concept of 

authenticity from the fetishistic relation with the materiality of the original 

object to the abstract relation with the qualities of its colour avoiding both 

banal and simplified interpretations. Finally, the metaphorical process that 

drove Taut’s proposal for this restoration leads the türbe to turn into an 

iconic monument of the Early Ottoman Architecture without the risk of 

falling unavoidably into kitsch manifestations. 

The idea to use a mineral paint instead of new fake tiles meant to privilege 

the visual impression more than the tactile one. But, it was also a question 

of coherence: since it was impossible to produce tiles of the same quality 

as the old ones, it was then both useless and illogical to try to achieve 

the original effect with fake materials. Taut was able to figure out a quite 

reasonable arrangement to preserve the monument’s general appearance. 

His indications display a modern vision on the topic of restoration and 

denote a bold mind able to defend such a drastic decision in relation 

both to traditional and historical questions. The reference to “Keim 

mineral paint” must especially be taken into consideration because it is 

a demonstration that Taut was quite well-informed on restoration issues 

not only from the theoretical point of view but also from the practical and 

operative ones (88). Such a deep knowledge of these kind of colours dated 

back to his former partnership with Franz Mutzenbecker (89). 

The drawing up of this Yeşil Türbe Report marked the final act of Taut’s 

professional routes as State Architect in Turkey while also unexpectedly 

allowing a connection with first steps of his activity in Germany. It is not 

surprising to find a passage of the report where Taut mentions those two 

early churches restoration to support his point of view on the subject. This 

part of the report especially reveals Taut’s attempt to prove a theoretical 

training in the field of restoration field which enables a justification for his 

involvement: 

“One side is of the opinion that it is both possible and necessary to 

reconstruct an old building as it had been built in ancient times. Supporters 

of this side belong to restoration’s academic school. They are not full trusted, 

because all the restorations from Viollet-le-Duc’s time onwards were 

completely unsuccessful. In Germany we have a sensational example, that 

of the reconstruction of the Heidelberg Castle. Once it was reconstructed, 

without doubt accurately, in its original appearance, it has lost all the artistic 

values it possessed as a ruin. Similar considerations can be stated in relation 

to other ancient monuments whose precious features vanished after an over 

eager restorations. Another restoration trend, with which I agree and for the

32 METU JFA 2010/2 

90. “Die einen stehen auf dem Standpunkt, dass 

man ein altes Gebäude genau so wiederherstellen 

könne und müsse, wie es in alten Zeiten gebaut 

war. Die Anhänger dieser Richtung vertreten die 

akademische Schule der Konservatoren. Sie haben 

insofern nicht viel Vertrauen auf ihrer Seite, als 

alle Restaurierungen seit Viollet-le duc bis in die 

letzten Jahre hinein mit einem Fiasko geendet 

haben. In Deutschland war ein sensationeller Fall 

derjenige des Otto-Heinrichbau vom Heidelberger 

Schloss. Nachdem es, wie der leittende Architekt 

glaubte, in seinen ursprünglichen Formen 

durchaus getreu wieder aufgebaut worden war, 

hat es alle die künstlerischen Forte verloren, die 

es als Ruine besass. Ahnliches gilt von vielen 

anderen alten Baudenkmälern, deren wertvolle 

Formen durch Übereifrige Restaurierung verloren 

gegangen sind. 

Die andere Richtung der Konservatoren, su der 

ich mich selbst bekenne,nach deren Prinzip ich 

bei 4 Kirchenrenovierungen gehandelt habe, steht 

auf folgenden Standpunkt: Es wird grundsätzlich 

keine alte Form nachgemacht. Die alten Reste 

werden nur vor weiterem Zerfall geschützt, sonst 

aber bleiben sie unangetastet. 

Mir scheint es richtig, wenn man nach diesen 

Grundsatz auch bei der Yeşil Türbe verfährt.“ 

Bericht über die Renovierung der Yeşil Türbe in 

Bursa (ISA, Iw 45, 1938, 3-4). 

91. Fischer at that time was involved in such 

restoration works too. In 1906-07 he worked 

on the restoration of Katharinenlirche in 

Eglosheim, in 1906-09 on the restoration of 

Johannniskirche in Brackenheim. Winfried 

Nerdinger (1988). 

92. Fischer (1903, 298). 

93. Fischer (1903, 299). 

GIORGIO GASCO 

restoration of two churches I drew my inspiration from, can be summarized 

in the following statement: In conclusion no ancient form must be copied. 

Ancient ruins must be just protected from further deterioration, for all the 

rest nothing has to be done. I think it is also a good choice to follow this 

principle in the case of the Yeşil Türbe.” (90) 

This passage also suggests how Taut’s conception of restoration, according 

to the dualism that frames basic intervention theories, was obviously 

closer to Ruskin’s conservation principle than to Viollet-le-Duc’s approaches 

towards a restoration aiming to create something that never actually existed 

in the past. Furthermore, there is no question that such a theoretical 

position was the legacy of his first apprenticeship years and especially 

of the ideas of his master Theodor Fischer (91). Fisher’s approach to 

restoration was characterized by a critical attitude towards Heimatschutz 

ideals’ followers who in their desire of defending motherland values 

actually ended up proposing a set of abstract values. On the contrary, 

Fischer was interested in recovering regional and local features. Restoration 

from this point of view becomes the suitable means to both protect and 

keep, through a selection of those features, the cultural memory of a region, 

a territory, an ethnic group. Taut’s ideas for the Yeşil Türbe quite match 

such a theoretical approach aiming to keep alive the cultural memory of the 

Turkish people embodied in the monument’s features. 

The reference itself to the Heidelberg Castle, which at first could appear 

as a generic case study, was carefully pointed out by Taut in line with his 

debt to Fischer’s education. This same restoration project had been blamed 

in a likewise radical way by Theodor Fischer. In 1902, in fact, in an essay 

on Restoration issue Fisher complained about the uneasy feeling of doubt 

that one had in relation to the concept of authenticity in nearly all restored 

buildings (92). In particular he stated that: 

“If the reconstruction of a damaged building is not verified through [original] 

plans or remains, so that the fantasy of the practicing artist has to contribute 

to the process, just as in the case of the Heidelberger Castle, the restoration 

work is not right. How is it possible to get out of this? We don’t really believe 

in taking seriously to work with the spirit of old time, which could create a 

deception.” (93) 

Fisher points at the restoration of Heilderberg Castle as an example of 

an approach that aims to re-edit the image of the past but ends with the 

result of spoiling its values and original features. Likewise, Taut was 

against such tendencies, which is why he therefore keeps on insisting on a 

specific point already surfaced in the previous two episodes of Ankara and 

Edirne: the refusal of any attempts to copy. Alongside this refusal, these 

evidences also manifest his fascination for ruins which he proposed to 

protect without either additions or transformations that could endanger the 

original features of those monuments. In particular, the aim of protecting 

ruins involves the recovery of the original features of the building and at 

the same time the emphasis for the identity values that they keep inside. In 

this way, the indications of Taut’s report for the restoration of Yeşil Türbe 

are quite meaningful. Even when Taut proposed a new intervention, his 

concern was to avoid any attempts of imitation. Sticking to Fischer’s line, 

Taut also considered the pretension of carrying out work in the same spirit 

of the past as deceptive. A bad copy would have immediately given rise to 

a false and kitsch result only. 

Thirty years later, in a totally different context and facing an unexpected 

assignment, Taut justifies his considerations of the Yeşil Türbe by not


94. Actually Kural, the director of restoration 

works, blamed Taut’s report considering 

his advice not up to the task; Kural (1944, 

96-7). As a result of Kural’s complaining 

then Albert Gabriel was asked to visit the 

monument to provide another opinion. 

Gabriel’s approach to the topic sounds rather 

dissimilar from Taut’s one, as it is possible 

to notice from some excerpts of the French 

archaeologist’s report included in Kural’s 

account. Whereas Taut deals with aesthetic 

and formal issue, Gabriel’s considerations are 

definitely more practical and are addressed 

to specific technical issues; Kural (1944, 97- 

100). 

only providing evidence from his early curriculum but also advancing an 

approach towards restoration in line with his old master’s principles refashioned 

according to more contemporary trends. The above-mentioned 

passage from his Bericht is not only is a declaration of intent, but also 

discloses Taut’s aim of introducing himself with a respectable profile fitting 

the Ministry of Education’s expectations (94). 

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NERDINGER, W. (1988) Theodor Fischer: Architekt und Stadtebauer, Berlin. 

ÖDEKAN, A. (2004) Yazıları ve Rölöveleriyle Sedat Çetintaş, İTÜ Yayınevi, 

İstanbul. 

PARVILLÉE, L. (1864) Architecture et décoration Turques au XV e siècle, Morel 

et C. Libraires Éditeurs, Paris. 

SPEIDEL, M. (1992) Colour and Light: On Bruno Taut’s Oeuvre as a 

Painter, Daidalus (n: 45), 127-9.


Alını: 13.10.2008, Son Metin: 22.06.2010 

Anahtar Sözcükler: Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni; 

Yeşil Türbe; restorasyon; milli kimlik; anıtlar; 

milli semboller; Maarif Vekaleti, Milli Eğitim 

Bakanlığı; Bruno Taut. 

TAUT, B. (1938a) Mimari Bilgisi, Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi Neşriyatı, 

İstanbul. 

TAUT, B. (1938b) Türk Evi, Sinan, Ankara, Her Ay (n: 2) 93-8. 

Türk Tarih Kurumu Archive (Ankara, TTK) Bruno Taut to Unknown, 

30.09.1916, Eldem’s legacy, HEE 5767. 

ÜLGEN, A. S. (1946) Anıtların Korunması ve Onarılması, Maarif Matbaası, 

İstanbul. 

WHITE, I. B. (1985) The Crystal Chain Letters, MIT Press, London. 

BRUNO TAUT VE TÜRKİYEDEKİ ANITLARIN KORUNMASI 

PROGRAMI’NDA ÜÇ ÇALIŞMA (1937-38): ANKARA, EDİRNE VE 

BURSA 

1933 yılında Maarif Vekaleti (Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı) tarafından, 

ülkede bilimsel ve sistematik bir biçimde gerçekleştirilen restorasyon 

çalışmalarının başlangıcına işaret eden, Türk anıtlarının korunması için 

bir program oluşturuldu. Programın yürürlüğe konma aşamasında Alman 

mimar Bruno Taut üç farklı konuda profesyonel görüşünü sunmak üzere 

Bakanlık tarafından resmi olarak davet edildi: Ankara’daki Mahmut 

Paşa Bedesteni restorasyonu, Edirne’deki bazı anıtların durumunun 

değerlendirilme sürecinin incelenmesi, Bursa’daki Yeşil Türbe’nin 

restorasyonu. 

Bu çalışma, yukarıda sözedilen üç konunun kronolojik olarak gelişme 

süreçlerini ve içeriklerinin tarihi arka planını yeniden düzenlemek için 

girişimde bulunmanın yanı sıra, önemli belgesel kaynakları temel alan 

değerlendirmeye yönelik yorumlarını sunmaktadır. Taut’un Türkiye’deki 

profesyonel gündeminin önemli başlıklarını kaydettiği İstanbul Günlüğü 

(İstanbul Journal) çalışmanın referans kabul ettiği en önemli belgedir. 

Bu birincil kaynakla beraber, diğer kanıtlar özellikle Anıtları Koruma 

Komisyonu’nun 1935 yılında yayınladığı raporu da içeren çeşitli Türkçe 

yayınlardan oluşan ikincil kaynaklardan gelmektedir. Bursa’daki Yeşil 

Türbe restorasyonu konusunda, Taut’un anıtı analiz ettiği yayınlanmamış 

çalışması olan “Bericht Uber Die Renovierung Der Yeşil Türbe”ye referans 

gösterme fırsatı bulunmuştur. Bu belge Taut’a verilen görevin resmi 

boyutunu yansıtmanın ötesinde, Taut ile restorasyon prensipleri arasındaki 

ilişkiyi ve özellikle onun Bakanlıktaki profesyonel statüsünün yeniden 

düzenlenmesinin incelenmesi açısından çok önemli bir kaynağı temsil 

etmektedir. 

Taut’un Ankara, Edirne ve Bursa’daki söz konusu çalışmaları; Bakanlığın, 

tarihi miras üzerinde yeni devletin kimliğini inşa etmek amacıyla bir ulusal 

proje olarak, restorasyon programını kurma çabalarını değerlendirmeyi 

mümkün kılan yeni bakış açıları önermektedir. Bakanlığın konuyu ele 

alışında en önemli strateji olarak görülen, anıtları “milli” semboller 

olarak düzenleme düşüncesi, aslında bu makale kapsamında seçilen 

üç konunun çalışma gündemini karakterize etmekte ve aynı zamanda 

Bakanlığın yabancı uzman görüşünden faydalanma nedenini açıklığa 

kavuşturmaktadır.

36 METU JFA 2010/2 

GIORGIO GASCO 

Bugüne kadar pek üzerinde durulmayan, Taut’un Türkiye’deki 

profesyonel etkinliklerine bu açıdan bakılması, onun devlet ideolojisi 

yararına anıtların yeniden analiz edilmesindeki rolü ve Türkiye’de 

restorasyon kültürünün kurulması sırasında katkılarını değerlendirmek 

için önem göstermektedir. 

GIORGIO GASCO; B.Arch., M. Arch., Ph.D. 

Teaches architectural design and theory of architecture in the Faculty of Architecture at Gazi 

University and is in professional practice together with Esplorativa Architetti (Torino, Italy). 

Has degrees from Polytechnic of Torino (1996), Master Program Metropolis, Barcelona (2002; 

thesis title: Domestic Interscapes. An emotional and relational topography of objects) Doctorate 

Program of Theory and History of Architecture in the ESTAB, Superior Technical School of 

Architecture of Barcelona (2007; thesis title: Bruno Taut and the Turkish Ministry of Culture, 

Professional Trajectories in Republican Turkey 1936-38) giorgio@esplorativa.it, giorgiogasco@gazi. 

edu.tr

bruno taut and the program for the protection of monuments in turkey

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