Modernist landscapes of Ankara

Abstract

Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal and the Kemalist revolutionaries believed that the new Turkey should be a ‘modern’ democracy and also a ‘green’ country in line with positivist science and modernist culture. In this context, the landscapes of Republican Ankara would become an experimental field for this Turkish nation-building and modernization. This article traces the development of modernist landscape ideology during the early Republican Era in Turkey and its translation by planner and architect Hermann Jansen into detailed design ideas for Ankara. It illustrates the interaction between Jansen’s cutting-edge social and landscape architectural ideas and the Anatolian landscapes after the First World War. Finally, it more widely defends the value of the fantasized and partly realized modernist landscapes of Ankara as part of the urban collective memory in Turkey and the modernist cultural heritage.