An Ontological Approach to the Conservation Conception of the Authentic Character and Cultural Heritage of Traditional Settlement Patterns in Turkey

Abstract

The unique form and pattern, and authentic character of a settlement are shaped as an outcome of a dialectic interaction between the inhabitants and the settlement, according to the culture of the society involved. As societies and their cultures change, the built environment, the outcome of the collectively produced decisions of a society, is adapted. With modernization, cities became spaces of re-production. This situation has led to the disorientation of society and the transformation of traditional settlements. The imposition of standardized spatial implementations of the modernist rationale has commonly generated transformation of the authentic character and patterns of the traditional settlements vanishingly in time by destroying the existing natural and cultural values. In this respect, the conservation of the existing patterns of traditional settlements, composed of their socio-economic and cultural structures, by highlighting their meaningful role in history, has become a significant issue in the discipline of urban planning. In Turkey, traditional settlement patterns have been subjected to the effects of a divergence in life styles, settlement practices and building processes as a result of economic and technological developments of modernization that have occurred since the mid-20th century. In time, the socio-spatial and cultural characters of traditional settlement patterns, as well as their visual characters, have begun to disappear. The aim of this article is, initially, to explain the concepts of authentic character and cultural heritage by approaching the interaction between culture and the physical environment from an ontological perspective. Later, the article puts forth the inconveniences of the "beings" of traditional settlement patterns, generated by socio-spatial breakdowns that stem from a disregard for ontological assumptions due to modernization, in conjunction with changing dynamics of everyday urban life in Turkey. It evaluates the conservation conception of the authentic character and cultural heritage of settlements, on the basic tenets of the disciplines of urban planning and design, in terms of an ontological approach.