Changes in public buildings practice in Turkey: the impact of competition projects

Abstract

Throughout history, architecture has been an important tool in which the rulers have demonstrated their power, ideology and identity to people. The authorities aim to create these representations on the ruled with the size of the building, the architectural style and the materials chosen. Every authority wants to have a building that represents itself in the city to not be forgotten. At the present, governments continue to build public structures with the same mentality. They want to show how deep their roots go by emphasizing their ties with the past in their buildings to demonstrate the power of authority. Increasingly in recent years, public buildings are determined by the projects selected in architectural competitions. With these competitions that are open to everyone, it is seen that there are differences in the design of public buildings. With public competitions, instead of a decision made by a single authority, public buildings are selected by a jury decision in a more democratic manner. By this means, the buildings started to represent the public instead of the government, and the ruled instead of the ruler. It appears to be a positive development in terms of architectural ethics. Within the scope of this study, the effects of ten selected public buildings on users were measured with a survey study. Some of the buildings designed with different architectural vision are projects selected as a result of the competition. With the survey study conducted on sixty people, it is aimed to measure how the buildings selected with the competition project change the public building perception of the users