Historic Buildings That Have Combined Functions: Cases from Ankara, Turkey

Abstract

Ankara is a historic city, hosted many civilizations succeeded one another including Hittites, Frigs, Lydian, Persians, Galatians, Romans, Seljuk, and Ottomans, all affecting social, cultural, and religious institutions in the city, thereby altering the architectural evolution in the region. The city with its long history in central Anatolia has rich historic monuments and cultural landscape including Islamic religious architecture. Among them, historic mosques of Ankara, as a single building type, have been the research area of many scholars, but the ones, with two different functions either integrated into a single building or integrally related with each other in two different buildings, have not been evaluated in detail in terms of their spatial organizations, developments, and typologies. Different from the terms “külliye” or “manzume” buildings that have combined functions include different functions that are solved in one building or buildings that are integrally related with one another. Hence, considering the general absence of published material on those monuments, this research analyses the formal developments and transitions in historic mosque architecture that have combined functions in Ankara rooted from Seljuk period to early twentieth century. It is aimed to provide a broader perspective in religious architecture of the region in the historic process of time by forming its relation with Anatolian counterparts. In Anatolia as well, there are similar design arrangements, such as mosque-hospital, mosque-madrasah, mosque-zaviye combinations especially from Seljuk period, and evolved in later periods. The architectural styles of historic combined buildings in Ankara are classified into two types based on their spatial scheme determined by means of in situ analysis, archival and historic research, as well as comparative studies. They are mosque-tomb combination and mosque-lodge/house combination, constructed either at the same time or attached in later periods. In addition to these two types, there is also a tomb-dervish lodge combination. The study on historic mosques of Ankara that have combined functions not only illustrates undiscovered information about their typologies with regard to formal changes that can be used to explore the others in Anatolia, they also display historic phases in the region, which can inform conservation efforts.