Remembering and forgetting in the funerary architecture of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: The construction and maintenance of national memory

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, Mimarlık Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2007

Öğrenci: CHRİSTOPHER SAMUEL WİLSON

Danışman: GÜVEN ARİF SARGIN

Özet:

This dissertation traces the concept of national memory through the five architectural spaces that have housed the dead body of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: the bedroom in Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, where he died on 10 November 1938; the catafalque in the Grand Ceremonial Hall of Dolmabahçe Palace used between 16-19 November 1938; the official funeral stage in Ankara designed by Bruno Taut and used between 20-21 November 1938; the temporary tomb in The Ethnographic Museum, Ankara; and Atatürk’s mausoleum, Anıtkabir, in use since 10 November 1953. The dissertation firstly narrates the construction of a Turkish collective memory by means of architectural representation and politicization and secondly the physical and ideological maintenance of this memory by means of additions and subtractions to these spaces.