Abstract:

Abstract In the majority of academic studies related to Ottoman houses, existing buildings are examined as research materials and are often placed under scrutiny to illustrate the architecture of traditional houses in a particular region. These studies predominantly evaluate the houses typologically, based on Eldem’s concept of the Turkish house. Following the typological analysis method, which is the one most frequently encountered in studies, different methods have begun to be developed drawing on new resources for architecture in recent years. In addition to the existing buildings, it is now understood that Ottoman written sources offer important materials in the examination of the houses, making it possible to examine houses before the 19th century, a period which has been neglected for many years. Also, the fact that written sources provide important information about the social functions of the houses make them even more attractive. The methods frequently used in evaluating the information obtained from the sources about the houses are the semantic analysis and the quantitative analysis methods. With the quantitative method, researchers evaluate information about the houses translated into numerical data and evaluate the housing history in the different periods of the Ottoman Empire through statistical analysis. In this context, this article is based on the idea that the methods that dominate the academic field of Ottoman houses – typological, semantic, quantitative analysis and the research materials –existing buildings, Ottoman written documents should be examined and critically re-evaluated. Accordingly, it aims to discuss this issue in detail in order to reveal that research methods and materials have their potential as well as their limitations, and to obtain meaningful results in new studies of Ottoman houses.

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