Resilience in intentionally destroyed historic settlements: An examination on Kirkuk Citadel and the old town of Van

Armed conflict is considered a major risk for cultural heritage since the Second World War and guidelines are prepared by international organizations such as UNESCO and ICCROM on risk management and protection of cultural heritage in conflict-affected areas. However, the main concerns are reducing risks prior to the armed conflict by identifying, analyzing, evaluating, treating and monitoring risks and managing them before the risk occurs. The literature is quite narrow in respect to the ways of protecting cultural heritage and sustaining life for both buildings and people in intentionally destroyed historic settlements. Within this context, this study aims to raise the question on how to manage change in the intentionally destroyed historic settlements and how to strengthen resilience in conflict-affected areas. In order to achieve this aim, an examination on two case studies, Kirkuk Citadel and the Old Town of Van, which were both intentionally destroyed as a result of armed conflict is made using comparative analysis method. The cases are chosen to represent different time periods, scales and types of destruction. Depending on the international law and guidelines, the study tries to understand the impact of armed conflict on the historic settlements embracing tangible and intangible cultural heritage, types of risks that threaten them and the ways to strengthen resilience in such areas. It is revealed as a result of the study that for both case study areas, being in the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage is seen a primary step to be internationally recognized and to claim help for future actions aiming to reduce risks. Nevertheless, it can be argued that strategies have to be developed depending on the size and level of destruction, and the level of intervention to preserve and to rehabilitate life in such historic settlements, as each intentionally destroyed historic settlement has unique cultural, political and economic characteristics

Swallowed by the urbanization: Spatial evolution of Adana Bağlarbaşı District

Vineyard (Turkish: bağ) culture is a common urban phenomenon in Çukurova region communities, which have strong ties with the land, due to the favorable climate and soil conditions. Adana\u27s historic city center and some of the vineyard settlements to the north of this area lost their rural settlement characteristic and started to be built up as a result of Hermann Jansen\u27s planning studies that started in the 1930s, and the city continued its development as planned towards the vineyard settlements (Turkish: bağlar) to the north. Although Gazipaşa, Ziyapaşa, and Namık Kemal Neighborhoods, which were examined within the scope of the study, were planned as a result of these planning studies, they were not built according to the plan. Thus, the implemented part of the Jansen Plan was defined by the railway line located to the south of these three neighborhoods. As a result, these three neighborhoods turned into an area where vineyards began on the periphery of the planned built-up areas and became known as Bağlarbaşı (starts of vineyard area). The aim of the study is to make a morphological analysis of the transformation of the three neighborhoods formed in the area where the vineyards, which previously had a rural settlement texture, disappeared as a result of the urbanization pressure that started in the 1950s, starting from 1950 to the present day, and to examine the process dynamics and to determine the general characteristics of the vineyard culture and houses in the study area. In the study area, morphological analyses were carried out by comparing aerial photographs from 1950, 1954, 1961, current maps from 1985 and 2019, zoning plans dated 1940, 1969 and current data.  In addition, the transformation was documented with photographs from various archives and oral history research was utilized. Two vineyard houses in the area were surveyed to determine their spatial characteristics. The data obtained through the studies coincide with Marcel Poëte\u27s assertion that "the memory of a city survives in the physical structure of that city". It has been determined that today\u27s parcel boundaries, main roads, and streets, physical formations such as thresholds and reinforcements of the three neighborhoods bear traces of the period when the neighborhoods were vineyards and gardens. In the area, a small number of vineyard houses (cottages), which are in parallel with the typological characteristics of the traditional Turkish House, have survived to the present day, albeit in ruins

Resilience in intentionally destroyed historic settlements: An examination on Kirkuk Citadel and the old town of Van

Armed conflict is considered a major risk for cultural heritage since the Second World War and guidelines are prepared by international organizations such as UNESCO and ICCROM on risk management and protection of cultural heritage in conflict-affected areas. However, the main concerns are reducing risks prior to the armed conflict by identifying, analyzing, evaluating, treating and monitoring risks and managing them before the risk occurs. The literature is quite narrow in respect to the ways of protecting cultural heritage and sustaining life for both buildings and people in intentionally destroyed historic settlements. Within this context, this study aims to raise the question on how to manage change in the intentionally destroyed historic settlements and how to strengthen resilience in conflict-affected areas. In order to achieve this aim, an examination on two case studies, Kirkuk Citadel and the Old Town of Van, which were both intentionally destroyed as a result of armed conflict is made using comparative analysis method. The cases are chosen to represent different time periods, scales and types of destruction. Depending on the international law and guidelines, the study tries to understand the impact of armed conflict on the historic settlements embracing tangible and intangible cultural heritage, types of risks that threaten them and the ways to strengthen resilience in such areas. It is revealed as a result of the study that for both case study areas, being in the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage is seen a primary step to be internationally recognized and to claim help for future actions aiming to reduce risks. Nevertheless, it can be argued that strategies have to be developed depending on the size and level of destruction, and the level of intervention to preserve and to rehabilitate life in such historic settlements, as each intentionally destroyed historic settlement has unique cultural, political and economic characteristics