Dictionary of Village Construction Art

During my sports or cultural trips, Turkish architectural terms I hadn't heard before made me look more carefully at village structures. I sensed that we had a rich vocabulary related to the art of building. When I looked at old sources, I began to realize that those words were guides taking us on a journey through the tunnel of time.

I could not find any direct studies on village architecture in old sources. Interest in villages began during the Second Constitutional Era by Turkist intellectuals; it accelerated in the early years of the Republic with Atatürk's special encouragement for research on Turkish language, history, and cultural history. I also combed through compilation dictionaries, which, at Atatürk's command and encouragement, were compiled by the intellectuals of the period, much like a bee collecting honey from the mouths of the people. My curiosity deepened, and I also went through scanning dictionaries. With the thought that it would be useful to make a comparison, I also examined reference sources related to the topic from the Göktürk, Uyghur, and Karakhanid periods. When I realized that these words did not just represent a structure or a building element, but that some of them carried traces of our cultural codes, I started taking notes. The transformation of these notes into the "Dictionary of Building Art" is the result of five years of research and examination.