Keleş, Ruşen. Eski Ankara'da Bir Şehir Tipolojisi. Ankara: Sevinç Matbaası, 1971, 225pp.
ABSTRACT
Old Ankara: Typology of a Town
Eski Ankara'da bir Şehir Tipolojisi
According to Keleş, the present day “Ankara” will one day become “Old Ankara” for future generations. He sets the geographical limits of his study to include the area within the walls of Ankara Fortress and a core zone comprising the surrounding neighbourhoods. In this respect, the area within the walls and the adjoining neighbourhoods is the Ankara of the 1920s. The author creates a spatial diagram incorporating information on the inhabitants’ occupations, income, educational level and quality of accommodation. Urbanisation and communal activity indexes are utilised to present information on the Old Ankara neighbourhoods.
He then examines the administrative structure of Old Ankara, depicting the municipal boundaries which included four towns: Çankaya, Altındağ, Merkez and Yenimahalle. He provides a population analysis and some statistics. Keleş also explores the relationship between Old Ankara and New Ankara. We are presented with Old Ankara’s inhabitants’ reasons for venturing into “New Ankara”: trips to government offices, for business, or visiting relatives and friends.
The author goes on to explore the social and economic organisations of Ankara by looking at various theories such as those regarding the development of shanty towns. Shanty towns are believed to develop in big cities of countries that are undergoing fast urbanisation: they bridge the old and new parts of cities, and are transitional zones in the material and social sense. The architectural structures within shanty towns are often similar in outlook; they are single-storey, single-room buildings that come with a small garden, a chicken coop, trees and wooden outhouses. Old city structures, on the other hand, are constructed by using complex materials. They are often worn out and they vary in appearance; they house dense populations.
Keleş addresses Old Ankara’s planning problems, which are similar to towns in other Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean countries, particularly those in Muslim countries. He examines the idea that changes in moral culture follow changes in material culture with a time gap: according to him, as far as Old Ankara and the slow material change in its neighbourhoods are concerned, the opposite seems to be true. The book includes photographs of Old Ankara and diagrams showing demographic change in the town.
Özge Soylu Bozdag
Translated by Aysu Dincer