MARMARA KÖŞKÜ: ATATÜRK İÇİN MODERN ÇİFTLİK EVİ

Established in 1925, the Gazi Paşa Farm has shown a planned development during the 1930s with its complementary functions of agriculture, industry, accommodation, entertainment, and leisure. The Marmara Chalet built as resident for Atatürk is one of the primary structures of the Farm premises, which defines the qualification of the ‘modernity project’ at its own scale. This early-dated structure realized by the Swiss architect Ernst Arnold Egli between the years 1928-1929, one year after he came to Turkey, reveals how the era perceived ‘the modern’ as much as tendencies of the architecture of Egli, and how it reflected these modes of presence to design/construction processes, and decision mechanisms. On the other hand, it is the messenger of the effective position of Egli at the Gazi Forest Farm that persisted during the 1930s with respect to planning and construction. Marmara Chalet is a part of the public park where the Marmara Pool, one of the primary entertainment/leisure places of the farm, is located. The structure designed as a modern farmhouse is an important example of the Early Republican period residences, its location characteristics complying with contemporary lifestyle, and its components satisfying functions such as meeting, gathering in balls, along with residing; showing modern design understanding, use of new materials and techniques, and many other minor details. Besides the appearance of the Farm developed as a manufacturing center with the Beer Factory and auxiliary buildings that would later be built by Egli, the park with the pool and the chalet is one of the focuses which contributed and still contributes to divergence of the premises from the image of a traditional manufacturing site of manufacture to that of a cultural space. This design performed by Egli immediately after he arrived Turkey, is the product of the environment he has newly came to as a Western architect, and his quests in regard to creation of architecture complying with the expectations of the employer. The arched porch pattern on the structure that is not seen in other designs by Egli, suggests the dilemmas of the transformation process in the culture of architecture experienced in late 1920s in Turkey. While the structure carries characteristics of modern residences with its steep sloped roof specific to the geography where Egli came from, wooden shutter windows, symmetrical and plain facades, its porched ground floor, and the interior pattern complying with the new life aspiration of the era, it does not completely represent the cubic definition that answers the architectural form and language of the time. The manufacturing and trade spaces which became distinct in the Gazi Forest Farm experience, and the life circles and details offered therewith provide detailed and substantial information as to ideational and formal base of modernization. It is evident that the transforming function of the Gazi Forest Farm with its specific qualities, such as the concept of occupant/designer in modern housing as a fairly new experience, the Western design understanding perceiving the interior and exterior of the building as a whole, cannot be ignored. It is a must to understand, evaluate and preserve the Marmara Chalet as part of early Republican period architecture heritage, like several structures with different functions on the Atatürk Forest Farm. Thus it will contribute to understand the Farm as a multilayered information package with its environment and its buildings Received: 16.05.2011; Final Text: 27.02.2012 Keywords: the Marmara Chalet; the Atatürk Forest Farm; Ernst Arnold Egli; early Republican Turkish architecture. 94 METU JFA 2012/1 LEYLA ALPAGUT The study aims to evaluate Marmara Chalet in the light of the original visual and written documentation accessed primarily at the Atatürk Archive of the Presidential Residence, the Archive of the Atatürk Forest Farm, and sources of other relevant institutions, and personal archives.