NATIONAL IDENTITY AND ITS CONTRAST WITH THE WESTERN MODERNITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE OF TURKEY

Statement of the problem. Because of geographical position and location in the middle of West and East and also the different historical empires that it has had, Turkey has always been affected by a variety of cultures and is thus a spring of dichotomies. In this paper, first we will review the descriptions of the tradition and modernity and then we will move on to examining their contribution into architecture. Next, we will have a quick look at Turkey and its contemporary social and political history as well as tradition and modernity in its architecture and by focusing on the classification of Turkish contemporary architecture, the sixth assortment of this classification which contains the buildings after 1980 will be investigated. Results. As tradition and modernity can be predominantly seen on cultural and religious buildings, in this paper for case studies some cultural-religion buildings which fit the aims of the research and study the mentioned factors on these buildings have been selected. This indicates that not only in contemporary architecture but also in society and culture of this country, identity, tradition and modernity are most important facts that with a designed and programmed management have coexisted and interacted. Conclusions. The results of this research shows that Turkey, as a modern country which has an amibiton to keep its identity and traditions usually seeks to insert the physical symbols of two styles together and as well as to keep the semantic and conceptual meanings of both tradition and modernity in its contemporary architecture.