The Past as a Source for New Identities

Research Seminar

  • Date: Mar 19, 2019
  • Time: 11:00 AM - 01:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Zeynep Kuban
  • Location: Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rom
  • Contact: paulinyi@biblhertz.it
 The Past as a Source for New Identities
History of Architecture is often used as an approbation of the roots of a country or nation. Greece and Rome were the cradle for all Europe and Historicist approaches in the architectural production were typical in the 19th and also 20th century.

The modernist movement brought new perceptions, but in and for countries like Turkey the question of identity and therefore the "outfit" of the architectural environment is still a debate. The question of "which past belongs to whom" is often emotional and since the past was created in a different political time and environment its selective approbation of modern nation states is problematic. Like the neoclassical architecture the modernist movement of architecture in Turkey was seen by the Turkish traditionalist and the European modernist architects as an unsuitable way of building. The lecture wants to trigger a discussion around this issue.

Zeynep Kuban is Professor at the Technical University Istanbul in History of Architecture. Fields of interest: The city of Istanbul itself, the notion and use of history in architecture, the mediation of the built historical environment to laypeople.

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