A CHANGING VERNACULAR LANDSCAPE: Çanakkale Ulupinar Village & Sustainable Solutions

Tulay Cobancaoglu, Binnur Kirac, Koray Guler, Erdem Salcan

Faculty of Architecture, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Turkey

tulaycobancaoglu@gmail.com, binnurkirac@yahoo.com, koraayguler@hotmail.com, erdemsalcan@hotmail.com

Abstract

Ulupınar village, is located in Çanakkale, in the intersection of Thrace and Anatolia, is divided into two parts by the Bosphorus of Çanakkale. The rapid transformation occuring all over the world during the last century has brought the globalization phenomenon and the negative effects of this phenomenon to the built and physical environment which has started to become more visible in recent years. Abandonment of the rural environment, which has been created for the needs of the geographic conditions by the experiences gained over the centuries, and people’s immigration to city centers, can be seen as one of the important negative impacts of the globalization. This rapid transformation in the population loop has resulted in a big percent of Turkey’s rural environment gradually becoming dilapidated and destroyed, as it has occured all over the world. In this context, Ulupınar village is a rural settlement that has important cultural asset potential, but is being dilapidated and in the process of being destroyed because of decreasing population. It has started to become an attractive place due to its proximity to the city center, especially for citizens who want to get away from the stress of daily life. This extremely rapid increase in interest can be seen as positive at first glance for the conservation of the settlement, which is in the process of dilapidation, but at the same time this interest is becoming a threat for the sustainability of the settlement’s cultural assets and local traditions which are already fragile. In this context, first of all Ulupınar village’s tangible and intangible values will be identified with a detailed inventory study that will be obtained by field work, and then the conditions required to transfer these values to future generations will be discussed in the scope of this study. Discussion of effective conservation approaches for the sustainability of rural architectural heritage will be aimed in the context of Ulupınar village, which is an example of a traditional rural environment that is gradually becoming lost. Proposals will be developed for how the increasing interest shown in the village can be shifted away from negative transformation risk to an advantage for the sustainable conservation approach.

Keywords: Çanakkale; Ulupinar village; rural architecture; vernacular landscape; rural settlements.

INTRODUCTION

The Ulupinar Village is located in Canakkale, that is divided to two parts by the Bosphorus of Canakkale in the intersection of Thrace and Anatolia. The Bosphorus of Canakkale is surrounded by parallel valleys up to 500 m on both sides. Kalabakli Valley is one of these valleys which located 8 km away from the Canakkale city centre. A well conditioned asphalt road from Canakkale city centre reaches the Ulupınar village. The Astrophysics Observatory of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University and The Military Radar Base of Çanakkale provides an importance to the village by being situated in the boundaries of the village. Beside its historical and cultural values Çanakkale takes attention with its rural, folkloric and ethnologic values. But negative effects of rapid global and socio- economic changes caused rapid and unrecoverable results on these authentic rural settlements. The main aim of this study is to analyze the effects of these global and socio- economic changes and solutions for them will be offered in the focus of partially abandoned Ulupınar village.

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Figure 1: Location of Çanakkale, Ulupınar Village.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Çanakkale, is a city of Turkey and situated in the northwest part of the country. It has been a scene for so many important historical events and ancient civilizations from past to present. Especially, the existence of the ruins of the ancient city states like Assos, Troia, and one of the most bloody battlefields of World War I as Gallipoli gives importance this territory in historical and cultural aspects. The oldest written documents found about The Ulupınar Village, start by time of 1905. According to this Ottoman Archive documents, we can understand that the village is settled down by the immigrants from The Lofça territory of Bulgaria by the time 1877 - 1878, during the 93 War, between Ottomans and Russia. The main subject of these archive documents is finding a financial resource for building a mosque and a school in the village. According to this documents, the village was consisted of 25 houses Rumelian immigrants and had nearly 100 inhabitants during the foundation years. Later, at the beginning years of 1990's, the population of the village is 261, and at the present time the population of the village is nearly 50. But nearly 15 of this people live in the village continuously. The other inhabitants live in the Çanakkale city centre because of various reasons. SETTLEMENT & VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE FEATURES

In 1999 dated, Icomos charter for built vernacular architecture, traditional construction is determined as a national and traditional method used by communities for sheltering. Ulupinar Village is constituted by Rumelian immigrants after 93 War and was built by using the building materials from immediate vicinity. And they preferred territorial building methods due to climate, economical and socio- cultural conditions of themselves. By the present time, the village consists of 34 houses, 8 barns, 1 old school building, a mosque, 2 fountains, 1 village room and coffeehouse building. All of these buildings are positioned in a organic establishment texture formed around a village square determined by blind streets and a scenically school building, mosque, a village room and coffeehouse building. The nicknames of the families those lived in the village from past to present are Dangiller, Boşnaklar, Çavuşlar, Karamanlar and Tilkiler. The villagers who has close relationship, usually, built their houses at suitable locations of their close farmlands. A small part of the houses are built in back to back position. The main livelihood of the village is agriculture and sheep -

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goat farming. Every family breed wheat, vegetables, fruits for their own requirements. The livelihood types of every family in the village, determine the configuration and sizes of the subsidiary buildings. The barns of the families those are intensively goat and sheep farming, are as big as the house building. But subsidiary buildings like these can be seen in the houses of the families whose main livelihood is agriculture. The other types of these subsidiary buildings can be seen in close positions to the houses are coops made of wooden fences.

Figure 2: General Settlement Plan of the Village.

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Figure 3: General View Of The Village.

Typology

In Ulupınar Village, the plan schemes of the dwellings represent the living culture of the local community. The life style, socio-economical structure, land structure, landscape, building materials and techniques effect the plan schemes of the houses in the village. All of the buildings in the village are single-floored. The simplest buildings, those built for the simplest requirements of the villagers consist of a semi - open hall space and two rooms those accessed from this open hall space. This scheme considered as the prototype of other plan schemes seen in the village.

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Figure 4: Semi open sofa type plan. A furnace used for cooking is placed in this open hall space. Usually the rooms have wooden ceiling and floor. And these rooms have wooden beams with straight traverses towards two directions. The number and dimensions of rooms change according to the economical conditions of the owners. Cabinets, closets and bathing cubicles take place on the walls of the essential rooms of the houses used for resting and sleeping. The toilets of these houses, are built in a place in the same parcel that is apart from the building. In some instances, in the sofa place with furnace is partly closed for setting of a kitchen space. In some of the advanced instances, sofas are placed at the middle of the house in an enclosed position. Another form of the enlargement of the spaces is the articulation of the rooms around the sofa, storage rooms, and floor furnaces. The houses, mostly wheat agriculture is seen, the spaces articulated to the main building is used as depots. In the houses, mostly sheep and goat farming is seen, these spaces, articulated to the main building used as barns.

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Some other instances have an oven in the garden in addition to depots, toilets. In figure 4, we can see that a room and a barn is opening to a semi - open sofa space in another plan type. This room with a furnace is used for essential living activities like eating, resting and cooking. The wooden beam, approximately 30 cm. in diameter, is and placed on the main outer walls of the building. The junction point is fork formed. This junction point is carried by a fork formed wooden pole. As seen in the other village houses, the floor of the rooms is made of deal wood (pine tree). As seen in the other houses of the village, the floor (pavement) of the semi - open sofa space is made of rammed- mound. It is able to see some instances those have more number of rooms due to the opportunities of owners of these houses. These houses have more windows in every rooms and some of these rooms have furnaces. This type of plan scheme is formed by the increasement of the number of rooms. These houses are being entered from a closed entrance space formed by closing of this semi- open sofa space. In the figure 6, it is shown that, plan type with a sofa is enlarged by being articulated with auxiliary rooms due to the requirements of the owners.

Figure 5: Views from the dwellings in the village.

Figure 6: Closed sofa type 1 plan. 702

Figure 7: Closed sofa type 2 plan.

In figure 7, the plan type with sofa is enlarged by the articulating some auxiliary spaces to the main space owing to the requirements of the owners. Ömer Çelik's and Raşit Karaman's houses are back to back positioned. The sofa is closed and transformed to a kitchen in Ömer Çelik's house. There is a room in one side of this distribution space, and it is accessible by 5 steps. In the other side of this distribution space is used as a wheat depot. Çelik Family, living of wheat farming, enlarged their house by adding the wheat depot block that is built by the same construction technique, to the main house block. In Ulupınar Village, flat roof style and wooden roof style covered with pantiles are the main styles of roof styles. Windows and door openings are formed by straight wooden traverses. The ground of the village is sandstone. And the foundations of the buildings are settled in 50 cm in depth. The stones those achieved from foundation pits are used for building the upper structure of the buildings. The wall surfaces are plastered with fibered muddy plaster on both sides. Gardens are enclosed by fences those made of branch meshes peculiar to this territory. In flat roofed

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instances, the roof beams are settled on the main beam which is carrying the roof, and they are covered with pine tree branches, oak and tree leafs, and earth. This type of roof compacted with stone roller for detraction of water from the building.

Figure 8: Plan Typology.

Construction Techniques

The first stage of the building period of Ulupinar village houses are, digging the sandstone floor for setting the foundations at approximately 60 cm depth. All houses in the village are single floored. The main outer walls of the village are composed of rubbled wall at approximately 50 cm in width. The roofs of the houses are flat roof or wooden roof in style. In long interstice spaces, wooden poles, vertically fasten upon a stone pavement are used to carry the roof. Wooden beams, 10 cm x 10 cm, are settled on the walls and poles. These beams are covered with pine tree branches, oak wood leafs and compacted mound. Fringes, 25 cm in width, are

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composed by carrying out 3 rows of stone at the conjuction points of roofs and walls. Wooden beams settled in to the walls for composing openings for doors and windows. Door and window profiles are attached to these beams. The roof construction of some buildings are made of wood and covered with roof tiles.

Figure 9: A perspective view of the construction system of the buildings and view from ceiling and wall details.

CURRENT STATUS AND DYNAMICS OF THE SETTLEMENT Evaluation of General Conservation Policy on Rural Areas of Turkey The most rapid deterioration process seen in the rural settlements all around the world can’t be discussed regardless of the nations culture, environment, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, architecture, planning, archaeology, urbanization policies and in this subject the multi- disiplinary studies are required. Conservation problems and the reasons of the abondonment in Ulupınar village, can only be understood by discussing the general conservation policies in rural areas throughout the country. In Turkey, conservation science and practice, instutionalized later than European nations and the notion of protected site which provided conservation of monuments together with their environment took place with the Law no. 1710 (The Law of Antiquities) in 6 May 1973. Before this law the High Council of Real Estate Antiquities and Monuments which was founded in 1951 tried to safeguard the urban fabric with registering civilian architecture examples one by one as a monument. The updated law with no. 2863 in 1983, though the definiton of the protected sites were widened, archaeological, historical, natural and urban site notions were not explained sufficiently and the law didn’t include rural site notion. When it cames to 2004, the conservation law developed by some changes and additions, but still there is no refer to the rural areas. In 2011, with the Decree Law No. 648 which has created big debates in conservation public opinion, were seperated cultural and natural heritage conservation authority from each other. With 1990’s the rural architectural heritage and the surrounding natural areas have been evaluated as a whole in the context of cultural landscape. While developing holistic policies for protection of the rural heritage in all over the world, in Turkey there is no

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effort to develop strategies for protection of the rural environments, water resources, wildlife, landscape and integrity. The rural habitats which are seperated from the urban areas with its many features, have rapidly lost their population with the lack of conservation policies, laws, regulations, urbanization and etc. The Ulupınar village’s physical environment which is the subject of this research, being neglected, dilapidated and gradually disappeared as a result of the immigration to big cities. Followed by the Turkish governments wrong agriculture, soil and water policies and the cultural change pressures as a result of the globalization accelerated the process of the abandonment in rural areas of all the country. The gaps in the conservation legislation, forgetten of the traditional craftmenship and construction techniques are caused the lost of the integrity and authenticity in rural habitats. Ulupınar village has lost its local inhabitants and the lands, dwellings and fields belonging to this residents passes into other people who are living in big cities as Çanakkale and İstanbul. Inheritance problem inside the families is also a major problem for the maintenance or restoration of the traditional buildings. Conservation Problems of the Village The immigration and depopulization which can be seen in Ulupınar village as the large part of the traditional rural areas in Turkey constitute the base of the conservation problematic. The tangible and intangible heritage in the region, are faced the risk of destruction with the deprivation of life (human) which is the reason of its presence. Due to immigration, the number of the abandoned buildings in the village are quite high. The vast majority of unused buildings became as a ruin. Structural deteriorations, which have occured due to the loss of function, have started with the mainly earth and, timber construction roofs and after that affects the all parts of the structure, The buildings that remains only the masonry stone walls and completely vulnerable to the atmospheric conditions are primarily at risk. The buildings which have not abandoned yet are used continuously or seasonally kept their structural integrity, but the unqualified interventions disrupts the authenticity of this buildings (Figure 10).

Figure 10: Examples of unqualified repairs. STRATEGY FOR PROTECTION OF THE VILLAGE & CONCLUSION Fundamental step for determination of the conservation approach is to identify the tangible and intangible values and determine the risk assesment of this values. In this context Ulupınar village is identified as a rural architectural heritage with its tangible and intangible values including its settlement type, location, architectural properties. The current status and problems of the village have been analyzed together with the reasons and the risk status have been determined in terms of conservation. The basic conservation problem in Ulupınar village, as mentioned earlier, is related with largely absent of the rural life culture. The rural life which can partially be observed with the traces of the buildings, has lost its sustainability but if the village re-evaluate with its current traces, there is still chance to transmit the village to the next generations. The ‘heritage’ should be considered as the main dynamic to ensure the sustainability with a new life perspective including the recall of the old traditions in the rural settlements as like as Ulupınar village whose bonds between traditional life culture interrupted. In Ulupınar village based on its heritage a conservation and rehabilitation Project should be targeted broadly based on the principles of conservation but at the same time envisioning

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economic, social and cultural improvement of the settlement. Ulupınar village has a big potential to be re-evaulate and return back to life. This potentials can be listed; 1- Still reflects the rural life culture with its settlement and architecture, 2- Located in a geography which has historical richness and very close to the Canakkale city centre. 3- to have a rich landscape and fertile agricultural fields. In the rehabilitation process the rural life of the village should be respected and if it is possible it must enrich with the compatible functions. Considering the fertile agricultural fields of the village, projects to develop ecological agriculture and animal husbandry should be developed by the co-operation of the local municipality, university and private sector. The rural life of the village which is targeted to develop, must be enrich with different functions This is important for the continuity of the settlement.It will be possible to introduce the rural life culture with different communities with the activities as like as summer schools and workshops under the theme of production and education relationship which can be performed with the support of the university. Considering the historical importance of the geography the village may be included to the important cultural routes. In addition to this, the picturesque cultural landscape owned by village may be an attraction point for the outdoor activities and rural tourism. In the preservation of the rural life culture the contribution of the tourism in economic terms is undeniable but the delicate balance between the conservation and tourism should be considered well. Being close to the Canakkale city center is an advantage for the tourism activities. The above recommendations developed for the new way of rural life for the village is required some buildings to consolidate, restorate or making new buildings compatible with the site. The type of the intervention will be applied to the buildings, will be decided in accordance with the criters such as current status of the authenticity, structural condition and reuse potential, etc. of the buildings. The buildings protect its authenticity and have a good structural condition will be rehabilitate with minimum intervention and will be purged from the unqualified and incompatible attachments. It is recommended that this buildings function will be continued as the same function. The buildings which have big structural problems but kept their mass integrity and authenticity will be restored and re-used for the new functions. The third approach developed for the ruins and buildings can only be seen as a basement level is to clean their environment and take security measures against the destruction and only consolidate the current status. This areas which is integrated with the landscape can be defined as open-air museum or recreation area fot the visitors. The conservation approach is to protect the village together with the ruins which is the evidence of the abandonment process of the village and the buildings which kept its authentic details and architectural character. REFERENCES

Eren, R. 2000. Çanakkale Ilinin Tarih Içindeki Gelişimi ve Folklor Incelemeleri. Istanbul, Turkey. Erten, I. 2005, Housing in Çanakkale from Troia to Today. Çanakkale Municipality, Çanakkale, Turkey. ICOMOS, 1999. Principles For The Preservation of Histroric Timber Structures, Mexico.

ICOMOS, 1999. Charter on the Built Vernacular Heritage, Mexico.

Oliver, P. 2003. Dwellings The Vernacular House World Wide. Phaidon Press Limited, London, UK. Rapoport, A. 1990. Defining Vernacular Design, Vernacular Architecture: Paradigms of Environmental Response. Avebury, UK. Vellinga M. 2006, Engaging the Future: Vernacular Architecture Studies in the Twenty- First Century, in: L. Asquith, M. Vellinga (Eds) Vernacular Architecture in the Twenty- First Century: Theory, Education and Practice, Taylor & Francis, London, UK. The Ottoman Archive Document date: 1321 (Hijri) Document No :2131.

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The Ottoman Archive Document date :18/B /1321 (Hijri) Document No :2189. The Ottoman Archive Document date:04/Ra/1324 (Hijri) Document No :71.

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