The History of Landscape Architecture and the Relationship Between State Ideology and Landscape Architecture
This article is a comprehensive evaluation of the literature on the Turkish landscape architecture as well as an in detail study of how landscape architecture was seen through the late Ottoman and early Republican period bureaucracy in academic and bureaucratic texts written on this issue. The evolution of urban parks in Turkey follows a historical path similar to that in the Western world. While parks in Ottoman Turkey fulfilled a traditional role, they became grounds for urban recreation from the eighteenth century onwards. During the late Ottoman period, these areas were con¬verted to urban parks and became significant agents of the modernization project. During the early years of the Republican period, urban parks, which had completed their evolution half a century ago, attained an ideological position yet again. In a politico-social context that manipulated existing situations to serve present-day concerns, the public park became a more significant component of an ideological narrative and, as numerous other social structures, fulfilled its role as an active ground for the system's "ideological fabrications".
TAYFUN GÜRKAŞ
