turkish-greek civic dialogue - AEGEE Europe

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THE OTTOMAN BUILDINGS IN GREECE:
POSSIBILITIES AND PROBLEMS
REGARDING POSSIBLE RE-USE
.............................................................................................................. Eleni Kanetaki
In the Balkan cities the Ottoman left the imprint of their own culture; while they
brought many of their cultural traits from the East. However, they absorbed
many of what they found in the conquered regions and afterwards developed a
multicultural character. The distinct architectural expression of the Ottomans
included a lot of building types, shaped in this cultural “mixture”.
Among them are included:
a. Buildings for religious purposes, as panes, (mescid, small mosque
without minaret), medreses (where the social contact of citizens
takes place through the prayer and the teaching), imaretia
(charitable institutions), tekedes - teke, (religious institutions, as
the Christian monasteries, that were useful as intellectual centres of
Muslim populations), tourmpedes - turbe, (graves).
b .Buildings of commercial use as bedestenia (bedesten, buildings
in which mainly transactions of buckrams took place, exchange
of goods, precious Stones, silver and gold), covered and outside
markets (bazaar)
c . Buildings of social operation such as baths (hamam), hospitals,
libraries and karavansaragja.
In the Ottoman territory, the dimensions and the proportions of buildings came
from an enacted model, but any divergences from the models were decided on
the spot and on an individual basis. The buildings were modified according to
the available materials of each region, the local architectural traditions and
the possibilities of local builders, as also and by the economic possibility of
each sponsor.
Up to now, Greece does not have an official recording of Ottoman buildings
and our knowledge is stemming from the declarations of monuments from
the Ministry of Culture and the corresponding regional services of sector,
13 organisations of Byzantine and Post Byzantine Monuments. Moreover,
the Authority of Restoration undertakes works of maintenance, fixing, reestablishment
and broader protection of the Byzantine and Post Byzantine
monuments. Their common suggestion regarding historical monuments
highlights particularly sensitive undertaking, because each new use that is
proposed requires specialised studies.
The acts of protection should be based on concrete steps aiming at the guarantee
of building prone to preservation such as institutions of historical memory
and their integration in the modern reality. The basic texts concerning the
protection and restoration of leftover architectural monuments are the Charter
of Venice (1964), the Statement of Amsterdam (1975) and the Convention on
the Protection of Architectural Heritage of Europe (Granada, 1985).
These steps of preservation are formulated as follows:
- Safeguarding of authenticity of monumental values,
- Re-establishment of static sufficiency of buildings,
- Adaptation of new uses with respect in his character,
- Management the internal and exterior spaces so that continuous
protection of the monument is ensured.
HOUSING AND SETTLEMENT POLICY
BEFORE THE EXCHANGE
................................................................................................................ Ali Cengizkan
There is an anecdote from Occidental sources. It is a dialogue which gives us
an idea about the countries in the socialist times. It is a dialogue between a
statesman and a peasant and of course the topic is the virtue of the socialist
state. The statesman asks, “If you were an owner of two large lands, would you
grant one of them to your government?” “Of course,” replies the peasant. The
statesman continues, “If you had two houses, would you grant one of them to
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