Ankara Araştırmaları Dergisi (Oct 2017)
A New Task For Hermann Jansen in Ankara: Planning the Gazi Forest Farm
Abstract
Established in 1925, the Gazi Forest Farm became a modern campus comprised of areas designated for agriculture, industry, commerce, and recreation. Following the initiation activities carried out between 1925–26, the 1930s saw attempts to give the farm a modern look and to enable planned development. Swiss Architect Ernst Egli’s 1934 farm plan was a design approach combining the historical and cultural heritage of the country he was working in with the style of the other public space initiatives of the Early Republican Period. Two years after this design was laid out, the planning and development activities at the farm were stepped up through a more comprehensive and programmatic approach. According to the “Convention on the Settlement Plan for Ankara and Its Vicinity” carried out in 1934, the planning of the Gazi Forest Farm was assigned to German urban planner Herman Jansen. The section to the south of the railway station, which was determined to be the center of the farm in Egli’s 1934 plan, became the subject of a more detailed plan two years later. On August 24, 1936, Jansen submitted a nearly four-page long report and drawings no. 3923, 3924, and 3925 pertaining to landscaping to be made in the vicinity of the brewery the Director of the Gazi Forest Farm, Tahsin Coşkan. Apart from these drawings found in the Archives of Berlin Technical University, there are two more drawings, no. 3940 and 3941, pertaining to the residential area to the east of the brewery, and a perspective drawing no. 3836 pertaining to the recreational areas surrounding the brewery which were not referred to in the report. In Jansen’s 1936 plan, it can be seen that this section at the center of the farm, which met the needs relating to production and accommodation, such as the brewery, civil servants’ and workers’ dwellings, baths, etc., was handled as a complex concept particular to the brewery. This study presents and reviews Jansen’s plans by means of written and visual documents, including in particular those found at the Atatürk Archives belonging to the Presidency and the Archives of Berlin Technical University. It aims to analyze the role of Jansen’s plan as a part of the modernity project of the Early Republican Period, the ideals around which it was shaped and how it was designed as modern living space with agricultural, industrial, and other functions as well as being a space for socializing and liberation.
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