District 3, Parcel 357 — Reconstruction Project

About the Project

The project covers the excavation survey, restitution and reconstruction of the building. The foundation and building traces uncovered by the excavation are assessed together with photographs, measurements and archival research to form the restitution decisions, and the reconstruction projects are prepared in the light of the resulting data.

Urban Context

Parcel 357 in District 3 lies within the area covered by the Conservation-Oriented Development Plan of the Antakya Historic City Centre. Because a large number of immovable cultural properties stand in its immediate surroundings, the building has been assessed within the integrity of the historic fabric. Conservation and design decisions were therefore developed with regard to the facade silhouette, the building height and the relationships with street and courtyard.

The Project in Numbers

Project Process

01

Condition Assessment

After the February 2023 earthquakes the building, which stood within the Antakya Urban Conservation Area, collapsed entirely, and its debris was sorted and removed from the site. The work therefore does not constitute a damage assessment in the conventional sense: it was conceived as a condition assessment focused on documenting the traces surviving at foundation level rather than any standing architectural elements. The spatial organisation, plan scheme and original architectural features of the building were reread and recorded by assessing together the foundation traces, the material remains identified in the debris field, oral history studies and written and visual archival documents. The aim was thus to document systematically the material and documentary traces of a cultural property that no longer exists.

BasisVenice Charter art. 16 · Law No. 2863 · Regional Conservation Board notification

Project Sheets

Project Team

• Yonca Yılmaz Çelebi
  M.Arch · Conservation Specialist
• Burcu Özlüoğlu
  Architect
• Eda Yabancı
  Conservator

Method and Sources

The sequence followed in this file — documentation, diagnosis, evidence-based restitution, repair with minimum intervention — is the established method of the conservation literature. Intervention decisions were taken on the principles that repair must not begin before the cause of damage has been diagnosed, and that the degree of intervention rises from consolidation towards reconstruction only as far as necessity requires. For the theoretical framework see Zeynep Ahunbay, Tarihi Çevre Koruma ve Restorasyon (YEM Yayın, 2009); for the principles, the Venice Charter (1964), the Nara Document on Authenticity (1994) and Turkish Law No. 2863 on the Conservation of Cultural and Natural Property.

Services applied in this project

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