Özet:

Abstract In this study, with the pre-acknowledgment of the results of Sedad Hakkı Eldem’s comprehensive study on the classification of Turkish houses, which has pioneered many following studies, it is aimed to focus on the story and philosophy of “Plan Type Without Sofa”, which has been in the background in the literature on Turkish Houses, in the context of function, material and culture. The position of the type in the classification system is tried to be explained by means of the examples and major studies related to the subject. Eldem stated that since the appearance of the Turks in the history scene, their settlements have been greatly diversified, while spreading and founding a number of different states. He narrowed the concept in his “Turkish House Plan Types”, to the houses which were inherited from the Ottoman Empire. Despite this, both definition and classification issues still continue to be discussed in the literature regarding the concept of “Turkish House”. Eldem’s book reflects the national architectural movement which has its interest and inspiration in tradition. The plan matrices in this book were used as a base in many documentation studies examining traditional residential architecture in various towns of Anatolia as a part of architectural education, and within this scope, the “modern character” of these houses was examined. In the Turkish literature, the dominant view is that the climate, building materials, technology, and the culture of the society, are the effects that reveal “anonymous styles” that cannot be attributed to people as a result of the kneading of environmental effects over time. Due to Eldem’s aforementioned assumption, the main element reflecting those effects and defines the types of Turkish houses ensuring their unity was determined as the “plan” of the main floor, that is, the top floor plan. In the study, the definition and classification discussions were examined, and the houses that constitute an example of the Turkish House plan type without sofa in Turkey were scanned. As a result of the scanning, it is seen that the plan type without sofa is not even included in the classification in most of the sources related to traditional houses and houses of these type are older and harder to find than the others. Even so few examples of houses without sofa were found in all regions. Samples from South-eastern Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia, Central Anatolia, Aegean, and Mediterranean regions, were analysed both within the context of these discussions or independently, and consequently an evaluation was made. Within the scope of the study, answers are sought to the questions of whether it would be more appropriate to consider the plan type without sofa as a “unit” in the modularity and organic development of the Turkish House, or as a house type on its own, or whether it is only a definition for the “other” houses which cannot be classified under a heading in the mentioned classification system. The distinctive features of the Turkish house are not found in most of the houses of plan type without sofa. Since the modularity of the Turkish house stemming from the multifunctional autonomous room layout is also not seen in the majority of houses without sofas, these houses are not perceived as a “unit”. As such, they mostly do not reflect the Ottoman culture. Houses with plan type without sofa, which generally constitute the most archaic and basic examples of the region they are in, vary depending on the region. Large-scale examples with a rich spatial setup can be found as well. For instance, the tower houses in the Aegean Region, located on the coast, emerged out of a need for defence and protection against dangers from the sea, while Diyarbakir houses without sofa, which exist in a rich space setup with courtyards and iwans, are the result of the warm climate, the production/nutrition processes and the local culture that social life requires separate spaces for men and women in the context of hospitality and intimacy as well. The most developed and rich space setup among houses without sofa is from southeast, however it is not a development pioneered by those in other regions, but independent of them, depending on the region’s own conditions. In this diversity, the fact that the regional examples of houses without sofas have very different points from each other, brings to mind the title of “other” in typology and weakens the idea that plan type without sofa is the “building block” of a modular and organically developing system.

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