Koruma Yöntemi Olarak Yeniden Yapım Kavramının İncelenmesi: İstanbul Örnekleri

Abstract

Tez kapsamında incelenen yeniden yapım kavramı, hem dünyada hem de bulunduğumuz coğrafyada uzun süre tartışılmış, hala da tartışılmaya devam eden bir kavramdır. Bu nedenle, bu tezin inceleme konusu olarak seçilmiş ve bu konuyla ilgili olarak özellikle ülkemizde nasıl bir çözüm üretilmesi gerektiği ile ilgili bazı görüşler belirtilmiştir. İnşa eyleminin doğuşuyla beraber yeniden yapım kavramının varlığından bahsetmek mümkün olsa da, koruma amacıyla yeniden yapım kavramının ortaya çıkması, tekil olarak birkaç örnek bulunsa da, Aydınlanma Çağı’nın sonlarına doğru gerçekleşmiştir. Koruma kavramının Rönesans ile beraber ortaya çıktığını ve geliştiğini düşünürsek arada geçen sürenin tartışmaların önemi ile doğru orantılı olduğu ortadadır. Yeniden yapım kavramıın uygulama açısından altın çağını yaşadığı dönem ise yirminci yüzyılda yaşanan iki büyük dünya savaşıdır. Yıkımın bu kadar büyük ölçekte ve ani olması, uygulamalar açısından kuramsal olarak kabul görmeyen yeniden yapımdan başka seçenek bırakmamıştır. Bu dönemde yapılan tartışmaların ana konusu yeniden yapımın hangi bağlamda ve ne ölçekte olması gerektiğidir. Bulunduğumuz coğrafyada uygulanan vakıf sistemi, dünyadaki örneklerin aksine eserlerin doğal afetler dışında büyük zarar görmesini engellemiş, sürekli bakım ile eserlerin bakımını devamlı kılmıştır. Bu nedenledir ki Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda korumaya yönelik yapılan yasal düzenlemeler ondokuzuncu yüzyılın ikinci yarısında ve arkeolojik eserleri korumaya yönelik olarak hazırlanmışlardır. Her ne kadar yasal düzenlemelerle koruma kavramı yerleştirilmeye çalışılmış olsa da büyük bir yıkım yaşanmaması ve birinci dünya savaşı sonrası içinde bulunulan ekonomik durum imar hareketlerinin 1950’lere kadar ciddi anlamda gerçekleştirilmemiş olması koruma konusunda önlem alınması için gerekli ortamın oluşmamasına sebep olmuşlardır. Ülkemizde yeniden yapım kavramının korumaya yönelik olarak tartışılması yine 1950’li yıllarda başlamış olsa da bu eserlerin tekil değil çevreleri ile beraber değerlendirilmeleri gerektiği, dolayısıyla yeniden yapımın bağlamı ve ölçeği ile ilgili olarak dünyada yaşanan tartışmaların ülkemizde de tartışılmaya 1973 yılında çıkartılan 1710 sayılı yasadan sonra başlanmıştır. Buna rağmen konu ile ilgili yasal düzenlemelerin hala tam olarak bir sonuca ulaşmamış olması ve mevcut düzenlemelerin istismara açık olması konunun tartışılmasında en önemli sebeptir. Bu nedenle yapılacak yasal düzenlemelerin yanısıra yerel yönetimlerin de bu konuyla ilgili olarak uzmanlarla beraber çalışması ve imar ile ilgili düzenlemlerin koruma amaçlı imar planları ile beraber değerlendirilmesi kentsel tarihi dokuların korunmasında temel yaklaşım olmalıdır. Bu yaklaşımın uygulanması ve denetlenmesinin düzgün bir şekilde işlemesi sağlanmalıdır. Bu koşullar sağlandıktan sonra, kişilere bağlı kalmaksızın koruma kültürünün bir gelenek haline gelmesi ile mevcut kültür varlıklarının gelecek nesillere aktarılması daha kolay olacaktır.

Throughout history, different cultures and civilizations transferred their construction traditions to each other via migrations, commercial interactions or conquests. This knowledge also forms the conservation approaches towards the constructed sites. Even early examples of reconstruction can be seen in early civilizations but these examples can be counted as spatial needs rather than preserving their traditions. Depending on the civilizations, the questions of “what to conserve?” and “how to conserve?” were the differencial points which were formed by their cultural backgrounds; in Egyptian Civilization the approach was conserving religious monuments where as in Greek Civilization the approach was conserving public buildings and their enviroments as well as religious monuments. The approach in Greek Civilization has influenced Roman Civilization as well. At first conservation was being considered as weakness because of their militaristic culture but then the term conversation became a sensitive issue and remained sensitive until the Christianity became popular. After the rise of Christianity, pagan temples were the first ones to get effected. For Christian way of belief, pagans were heretics thus pagan temples were used as quarry or converted into Christian temples. Furthermore, all other constructed culture of paganism vanished by time. This behavior has been continued in Middle-Age period as well. Destructive attitute towards buildings eventually caused a birth of a protective counter-approach towards them, which we call “cultural heritage” today. The term itself was born on interference of Christianity and Humanism and enhanced as Classical Antiquity was considered as an important milestone in history and springboard for cultural continuity and creativity. Hence this new concept led Popes got intrested in city planning and made them consider a new christian Rome by revitalizing its former glory via this new approach. The period that great differences were seen in the techniques and interactions between the monuments and their enviroments was 18th century. Intrests shown in conserving Greek and Roman civilizations’ monuments led legal regulations to be made about them and more methodical ways to be seen. Another important point was that experts like Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Sir George Gilbert Scott started a new conservation technique as pioneers, which is known as “stylistic restoration”. Stylistic restoration was giving those experts an ultimate freedom over the monuments they were working on. The technique offers to take responsibility and finish the construction or restoration the ancient monument by the inception of that architect about periodical features of that monument. The architect was free to decide which periodical constructions to remain and which should be removed from or added to that monument. This much freedom and monuments been worked of as examples of this technique led to another progress and this progress ended up with developping scientific methodology in architectural conservation. First international scaled incident to test all these methods and approaches was the World War I. Heavy bombardments destroyed most of the buildings and demolished cities in many countries all across the Europe. Having so much damaged buildings in such a short period caused experts to discuss about the approaches and decide on when reconstruction can be done. All these discussions and meetings ended up with some new legal regulations, theoretical and practical bases to be applied in restorations and charters. The World War II, was more destructive than the first one and majority of Europe was demolished as a result of this war. This situation left no option but reconstruction in many cities especially in Germany and Poland. This opportunity was considered as a new begining and both countries rebuilt their cities with modern aspects of city planning and architecture, while preserving their traditional construction techniques and historical cities. Those examples are good to illustrate that construction and conservation can be done at the same time if they should be done. On the other side, at the eastern part of the continent the tradition itself was conserving the monuments and public buildings under the name of the institution of waqf. This system provides a maintenance that keep buildings, without a need for expensive restorations. In one hand the existence of this waqf system, and on the other the fact of not being suffered by war demolitions, conquests or revolts; Ottoman cities didnt need any legal regulations to be made until the second half of the 19th century. Even then, the regulations were made to set statements about prohibitions about smuggling of the archeological findings. First regulations made about buildings were published on 1874. This also shows us how late these actions needed to be taken in Ottoman Empire. From 1874 to the proclamation of Turkish Republic in 1923, not many regulations were made. The new republic adopted systems and regulations currently in use at that time and opted to apply them for keeping up the pace while establishing new government. Neither Ottoman Empire nor Turkish Republic suffered damage from World Wars in terms of destructions of cities, but after living two big wars; economical state of the newly established republic was not bright at all. On the one hand this state caused very limited constructive actions all over the country, mostly focused on the new capital of the republic whereas on the other hand this lack of funds and limited constructive actions helped to preserve historical cities and kept them away from being damaged under the terms of development. First important institutive attempt in new republic was made in 1951. Establishing of High Council of Historical Buildings and Monuments was a treshold. Resolutions were made by the High Council led restorations to be done in modern aspects and scientific methods. Until 1970’s, the High Council served well and made many resolutions but it was seen that the regulations were not sufficient for conservation. As result of this situation, a new law was declared in 1973. By this new law, the term “site” was used for the first time. Even for enhancing the conservation approach to the historical buildings, from individual structures to buildings with their enviroments, this new law was a successful attempt itself. In 1983 another law was built and enhanced the terms were made on the former law. What was important abut this new law, that the term of “cultural assets” were used for the first time. Later, this law was renewed under different names in 1987, 2004 and enhanced by an executive law in 2011. In Turkey, discussions about conservation started way later than the other countries of the continent and still developing so it still has some problems at application and supervising of restorations. This is mostly due to the lack of need to take actions or set regulations about conservation. Until the 1970’s, general idea about conservation was taking each buildigs individually and not interacting them with their enviroments. Such approaches led to neighbourhoods with unaesthetical streets while creating unjustified increases on land values where these buildings were constructed. Istanbul had always been a multicultural city, capital of Byzantium and Ottoman Empires and located on a very strategical junction point between Europe and Asia. This multicultural pattern also forms different quarters in the city with their own construction traditions and social life. The cases observed within this thesis were choosen from different historical quarters of Istanbul; Yeşilköy, Eminönü, Şişli, Üsküdar and Kadıköy. After observing the cases, three different forms of reconstruction were listed. First one of them is “reconstruction of the original structural system and preserving the plan and materials”, second one is “reconstruction with altered structural system while preserving the plan and materials” and the last one is “reconstruction of the original façade only”. Most of the cases were listed under the third group. Main reason for this concentration in listing is due to the registry status of these buildings. Legal regulations and registry statuses of these buildings allow contractors to keep the facades and re-build these buildings as profitable as they can. Zoning statuses and allowing unqualified buildings to be built on near lots causes proprietors want to rebuild their own buildings, but this will is about having their development rights and increase their constructed areas rather than conserving their registered buildings because of these zoning statuses. Another problem is the increase of the land values of the lots. For making profit of these steadily upgoing tendency, most of the time, registered buildings were damaged intentionally and left the proprietors with no other option but reconstructing their buildings and make profit generated by their new land values. In developing countries like Turkey, building sector can become the leading sector. So earning money from the lot may become more important than conserving that lot in most cases. As demolition and reconstruction were two separate opportunities to earn money, the situation is regarded as source of income for most of individuals. For preventing these kind of actions, people should be informed about their properties and cultural continuity should remain. Local governments should provide this service and inform proprietors. The sense of conservation may develop by this kind of actions but is also not enough only by individual attempts. Muncipalities should also not allow unqualified, unaesthetical buildings to be constructed near these registered buildings. Neighbourhoods, blocks should be considered as one and be designed in harmony. Some economical benefits should be brought to the proprietors such as reduced tax rates and re-functioning their properties. Many registered buildings are in poor situation compared to their neighbours. Restoring a registered building is indeed an expensive work. Maintenance can reduce the expenses but materials and craftmanship of these buildings are more expensive than newly build ones. In order to balance the expenses and income, these buildings may be used in other services rather than being forced to keep their residential statuses. These buildings should be considered as cafes, museums, hostels or offices and allowed to serve in such functions to increase the income of the proprietor to meet the expenses.