| This thesis develops a theory of translation in architecture, and explores the history of cross-cultural exchanges that transformed the residential culture in Turkey and Germany through the agency of immigrants, travelers, collaborating local architects and international students. As an example of architectural translation, it focuses on the early twentieth century German-Turkish interactions by tracing the flows of architects, architectural ideas, images, information and technologies across geographical space, as well as their transformations at the new destinations. This thesis analyzes two distinct but connected histories of modern land settlement and residential culture. It outlines, on the one hand, the translation of the garden city ideal from England to Germany at the turn of the century until the First World War, and then its transformation into the Weimar Siedlungen during the inter-war period in Germany. On the other hand, it traces the translation of, first, the garden city, then, the Weimar Siedlung theories from Germany to Turkey, as well as their different hybridizations with the "Turkish house" discourse during the early Republican period in Turkey. Translation is elaborated here as a field of study that explores the details of cultural exchanges, and one that evaluates different experiences of the "other," of the outside, in a given context. Architectural translation is a contested contact zone that not only makes cross-cultural dialogues possible but also reveals the tensions and conflicts created by the perceived inequalities between places. In explaining the Turkish experience, I put forward a theory of melancholy to refer to one of these tensions, and further elaborate on the concept to critically evaluate the popular prejudgment that translation is the medium where the "authenticity of the original gets lost." This dissertation is intended as a contribution to our understanding of modernization of the world at large, including countries that have historically received less scholarly attention than Europe and the United States, as well as a contribution to our comprehension of the potentials and conflicts integral to globalization. The historical accounts of transfer and transformation recorded in this study challenge both the assertion about the "radical otherness" of the "non-Western" countries, and their treatment as indifferent copies of the "West." Translation studies invalidate global/local as well as West/non-West oppositions, emphasizing instead the intertwined histories of modernization. As such, this dissertation aspires to show how translation makes history. |
