Controversies in Architecture

What interventions and complaints did ordinary people who built or had buildings or building elements built in the late Ottoman period face?
Is the power of these interventions and restrictions known?
How much did the legal basis of the decisions made regarding the use and perception of the building or building elements; changes and features affect them?

This book, titled "Conflicts in the Architectural Environment: Complaints and Interventions in the Construction Sector in the Late Ottoman Period," which you hold in your hands, is a successful project carried out within the Ottoman Archival Documents to answer these questions. The focus of the study is the problems caused by building elements and the changes that led to disputes between what was commissioned and what was completed during the construction process. During the construction of structures such as hotels, pensions, and apartments, which emerged as a result of modernization in the Ottoman world, as well as building elements such as bay windows/şahnişin, windows, and stairs, it is possible to encounter complaints and interventions stemming from the urgent need for privacy. However, inter-sectarian struggles, which arose during the construction of churches and their annexes, also emerge as a separate problem.

Regulations, codes, and sharia provisions were prepared to frame architectural rules. However, none of these texts prevented the emergence of disputes and tensions in the construction sector. In Ottoman society, disruptions arising from construction carried out by builders and their neighbors, as well as the construction of nearby structures, could go beyond the limits set by the rules. In the book, complaints and counter-complaint petitions regarding obstacles and interventions in construction activities, the content of these petitions, the problem-solving methods of decision-making bodies, and the legal basis of the decisions are examined from a critical perspective. With this study, it has become possible to make determinations about the extent to which complaints arising from obstacles and interventions shaped the architectural activities of ordinary people in the Ottoman Empire and how the process unfolded. Complaints and changes led to the reconsideration and transformation of decisions, codes, and regulations, and this transformation shaped architecture.