Vesper No. 8 | Vesper | Spring-Summer 2023
Davide Deriu
Travelling to Ankara: Western Perspectives of the
Modern Capital
Keywords
Ankara (Angora), Istanbul (Costantinopoli), Occident,
Orient, Turkey
The centenary of the Turkish Republic, proclaimed in 1923,
prompts us to to revisit a historical moment in which the European perception
of the Orient changed unexpectedly. As if in a play of mirrors, the perceived
“decline of the West” that was evoked in Europe was countered by
the dawn of Turkey, the nation state based on a reformist and secular ideology.
Architecture played a fundamental role in its construction: during the 1920s
and 1930s, the ancient town of Angora (Ankara) was transformed by European
architects who were drafted in to design a modern capital. The town under
construction redefined the journey to the East, shifting its desination from
Constantinopole – eulogised by European writers between the mid-19th and
the early-20th centuries – to the heart of Anatolia. After traversing the
steppe, European travellers were struck by a place loaded with promises and
contradictions. From the travelogues of the early-Republican period, there
emerges the bewilderment of the West vis-ā-vis a process of change that
subverted the very principles of orientalist culture.
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