Re-Functioning the Italian Embassy Building in Macka

Abstract

Giving the use of various state institutions under the new needs of old buildings is a common approach to present-day Turkey from the Ottoman Empire. Allocations are generally made across the country in line with the need for building and use.

Istanbul is a place where allocations are more common, probably due to building stock and usage density. Particularly most of the large programmed buildings have been allocated and re-functionalized.

The Italian Embassy is one of these buildings. The building was designed as the Italian embassy, but construction was not completed and could not be used for this function. The purpose of this paper is to examine the allocation process of the structure, to determine the applications and the authenticity of the structure. For this purpose, researches have been carried out with the permission of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in the archives of Regional Council for the Conservation of Cultural Property Istanbul II. In addition, document research was carried out at the T.C. Presidential Republic Archive.

In 1938, as stated in the article 2/9363 of the T.C. Directorate of Judicial Decisions, while the building was under construction the Republic of Turkey was agreed with the Italian Government and 150.000 TL was purchased in two installments and the building was transferred to the Real Estate Agency. President Kemal Atatürk's signature is in the official letter (30-18-1- 2 / 84-71-2, The Presidency State Archives of the Republic of Turkey).

In a document in 1942, it was reported that the building was sold to Milli Reasurans by the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi Head of Istanbul Provincial Administration Committee (490-1-0-0 / 1721-995-2, The Presidency State Archives of the Republic of Turkey). In this process, the announcement of the sale of the structure appeared in the newspapers with the title “Land for Sale in Macka” (Tasviri Efkar Newspaper, September 22, 1942).

During this process, on September 25, 1942, Istanbul Governor and Mayor Dr. Lütfü Kırdar asked the Ministry of Finance to transfer the building to a conservatory or a city club (30-10-00-00 / 81-535-8, The Presidency State Archives of the Republic of Turkey).

After all the allocation processes, today, the structure is re-functioned for educational usage as Macka Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School.

Within the scope of this research, it is aimed to determine the allocation phases of the building, the transformations of it after the re-functionalization processes and to evaluate these determinations in terms of conservation theories.