Bursa Khans Region as Urban Monument Artifacts

Abstract

The important initial stage of the design process is reading the texture of the new building’s place, the location in the city, the typologies of buildings around it and understanding the urban morphology. For the sustainability of the urban texture, the analysis of the urban environment is essential in the design process.

Monuments from Rossi's (1984) urban artifacts are the primary elements of the city. Monuments cannot be read and analyzed alone or separated from the surrounding urban morphology. Monuments belong to a system that depicts the city, and by controlling the system, they form a model for the structures to be built later. The monuments accelerate the process of urbanization, remain in the center, form around the buildings and the city begins to grow around these. Monuments become a reference point in urban memory, give the city an identity and the city is referred to as monuments. Urban artifacts often coexist as split in a particular order.

When the Bursa Khans Region is analyzed in the context of Rossi's urban artifacts, it is understood that the city began to form around the first monumental buildings built by Orhan Ghazi. Bursa was a small city within the castle when conquered by the Ottoman State. Then, it became the capital city and in the historical process, the city was built as a commercial center of the Ottomans. The first buildings which are Orhan Social Complex were built in the place of the market outside the city within the city fortress. The development of the city began with these monumental buildings formed a model for other monuments and urban texture. Bursa Khans Region is a split consisting of primary elements in the city. For centuries, the Region had become the identity of the city, which contains monuments in the memory of the citizen. The region became the intersection of significant trade centres and continued to maintain its commercial importance after the conquest of Istanbul. The first buildings of the republic period were also built in this region.

This paper’s subject is the analysis of the Bursa’s development, where it continues to grow rapidly, around monuments in time. The aim is to remind the monuments which are the symbols of the city and the protected urban morphology for the new buildings’ design process which has to be respectful/ compatible with the urban texture, especially buildings constructed/ to be built near the Khans Region.