TURKISH ARCHITECTURE IN THE REPUBLICAN PERIOD
The 1950's and Modernism
During the 1950s Turkish Architecture came under the influence of Modern Architecture which was spreading through Europe and the USA at the time. Buildings of this period show a tendency towards rationalism. WW II was over and politically and socially Turkey was turning more and more towards the West. Typical buildings of this period are the Istanbul Municipality Headquarters (Nevzat Erol, competition, 1952),the (SOM ve , 1953), Büyükada Anadolu Club (Turgut Cansever, , 1953), Sakarya Government Building (Enis Kortan, Nişan Yaubyan, 1956), the Turkish Pavilion at the World Fair in Brussels (Muhlis Türkmen, Utarit Izgi, Hamdi Şensoy, Ilhan Türegün, 1958), the DSI Headquarters (Enver Tokay, , Teoman Doruk, 1959), the Tekel Headquarters in Istanbul (Ilhan Tayman, Yılmaz Sanlı, 1959), and the Kızılay-Emek skyscraper, Ankara(Enver Tokay, 1959) .
In Turkish architecture, the 1950s was a period of universal rationalism, influenced and fed by foreign publications, without regard to technological, economic, social or environmental factors.
This approach, mainly through experiments with Western forms, lasted until ideas changed in later years from geometric purism to organic form. outstanding architects, known world-wide, such as Rohe, Wright,, Le Corbusier, Niemeyer and Scharoun had through the publication of their thought and works a great influence on architects in Turkey. In the Sixties, there was an explosion of idealism in Turkey paralleled by the evolution of a medium for disccssion and debate. However, rather than leading to experiments of an independent character in design and implementation, giving importance to local and environmental values, this led to an approximation with what was suitable in trends from Western sources. On the surface Modern Architecture seemed to have arrived inTurkey but the technological infrastructure was still lacking.