Sosyokültürel Sürdürülebilirlik Kavramı ve Kendini Koruyan Kent Olgusu: Ankara Saraçoğlu Mahallesi Örneği

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the concept of urban memory and emphasize the importance of the researching sustainability of the sociocultural texture of the Saracoglu neighbourhood, which is the first mass housing of the Republic of Turkey. The creation of the consciousness of ''urban memory'' is possible by protecting the social, cultural heritage of historical environments and by developing them and transferring them to the next generations. Saracoglu neighbourhood, located in Ankara, is one of the valuable modern architectural heritages with traces of the second national architectural movement. Today's Namık Kemal neighbourhood is in danger of extinction. The necessary sensitivity on ecological, economic and socio-cultural sustainability should be given to this region, which has been declared as an urban site.

The declaration of the Republic and Ankara's capital had affected population growth and brought the need for housing with it. In order to solve the housing problem caused by the rapid increase in the number of civil servants, planned housing groups were designed as a solution proposal by the Civil Servant Housing Law proposed by the government of the period. Saracoglu neighbourhood was designed to the German Architect Paul Bonatz and his team by the Prime Minister of the time. The residences, where soldiers and high-level bureaucrats live in, have the ''garden city neighbourhood design concept'', have gained its own sociocultural texture without any structural changes since the day it was founded.

Saracoglu neighbourhood, which has an important place in the city identity and is protected as an urban site, has been declared as ''disaster risk zone'' at 2012 and has been subjected to compulsory evictions. This Historical Environment which is belong to Republic Period is in danger of extinction today. In this context, self-protecting city phenomenon which have been underlined by Foundation for the Protection and Promotion of the Environment and Cultural Heritage (CEKUL), one of the protection movements in Turkey, will be examined as a first case, after that, the most accurate steps to be taken will be discussed by interviewing the old residents of the neighbourhood. In this way, cities with identity will exist and will be transferred to future generations who respect urban layers and strengthen them by emphasizing the concept of sociocultural sustainability.