İSTANBUL'DA ONDOKUZUNCU YÜZYIL SIRA EVLERİ «KORUMA VE YENİDEN KULLANIM İÇİN BİR MONOGRAFİK ARAŞTIRMA

The phenomenon of "preservation and evaluation of the historical environment" has generally been considered a "cultural problem" or a "cultural heritage problem" for . a long time. However, in recent years, i t .has been realised that merely cultural aspects are not sufficient to define its dimensions and characteristics. The content of application has also developed from "preservation" to "evaluation". This approch reveals itself in attempts to consider economical and functional problems in decisions for preservation. The study presented here intends to develop c r i t e r i a for the selection of areas and scales on a theoretical level and to obtain the necessary data for t h i s. The rapid increase of city population in all parts of Turkey is a factor in cultural loss with its effects on exhaustion of the housing stock and the insufficiency of urban infrastructure. Laws or applications, which do not consider the existing building stock as valuable, accelerate this loss. One of the aims of this study is to contribute to the development of proposals for the evaluation of the existing building stock. The study' consists of two phases: the aim of the f i r st phase is°"to determine areas and scales in accordance with the set c r i t e r i a ; the second phase is to generate plans for preservation and adaptive reuse in an area selected according to the c r i t e r i a set in the previous phase. For the area study to be conducted in relation with the c r i t e r i a of the f i r s t phase, lstar.ibul was selected as the area and a typological unit, rowho use was chosen as the scale. The s u i t a b i l i ty of the row-houses as the work unit is based on the facts that their physical environment is relatively undamaged; they are p a r t i a l ly common property; they constitute small groups which can later be handled without much difficulty as preservation units; they are easy to typify and standardize; they have a* sound physical structure so they can be renovated with slight restoration; and l a s t l y , both the restoration and renovation of them are thought to be not too costly. İSTANBUL'DA ONDOKUZUNCU YÜZYIL SİRA EVLERİ 205 • Although row-houses, a l l of which were b u i l t after the second half of the 19 th century, constitute a typological category that does not have a place in the t r a d i t i o n a l urban s t r u c t u r e of the Ottoman c i t y , they have shown a s i g n i f i c a n t development in the sociology and h i s t o r y of the period as houses of the middle and p e t i te bourgeoisie. Although certain conclusions have been reached with regard to the location and r e l a t i o n s of rowhouses in the c'ity-scape, the approach to t h e i r physical c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s , their design models and s t y l e s , they have not yet been investigated from the point of view of social h i s t o r y . Due to this lack of research, it is not possible to i n t e r p r e t p r e c i s e l y the urban development tendencies of Istanbul during the 19 th century looking at the locations of the row-houses. At t h i s point of the research, it can be said that the row-houses in Istanbul, as a typological category of western origin, form an o r i g i n a l synthesis. This synthesis finds i t s place in the c h a r a c t e r i s t ic p l u r a l i s t media of Istanbul that originates from the h i s t o r y of the c i t y and i t constitutes a value that should be preserved.