Studies on the History of Architecture and Construction Technology
Beginning with the early 19th century, numerous medieval monuments in Europe began to be repaired along with the birth of eclectic attitudes towards the medieval architectural heritage. Historicist styles evolved in this context. The studies concerning the history of architectural technology, which gradually emerged especially in the second half of the same century, constituted the by-products of this intellectual milieu. Their background, however, was defined by the handbooks on modern building techniques that appeared as early as the late 18th century. The architectural productions of non-European cultures were to be discussed in later scholarly works, and the first studies on Byzantine building techniques were published in the late 19th century. Early attempts to write histories of the actual Ottoman architectural technology were realized in the mid 18th century. First historiographical essays treating the Ottoman tradition in terms of building technology were published, however, beginning with the 1940s, but they were monographs on the particulars and details. The works on the history of architectural techniques in general flourished after the 1980s with an overwhelming focus on the Ottoman period. Pre-Ottoman era is still seldom represented in the Turkish historiographical literature.
GÜLSÜN TANYELİ
