Abstract

"A Monument's Domain" considers the making of modern monuments between Turkey and France in 1924 by focusing on a short text by Le Corbusier, namely, "Mustapha Kemal Aura Son Monument." It considers some early architectural and sculptural projects for Ankara, their role in the establishment of the territory of the Turkish Republic as well as the changing definitions of the term "monument" in the Turkish language. It also provides a close reading of Le Corbusier's response to Turkish modernization efforts and his calls for cultural preservation of Turkish Islamic monuments by considering some of his other texts along with his earlier sources on architecture. It extrapolates a theory of a modern monumentality in the writings of Le Corbusier, which defines a monument as a condition of interiority as an alternative to urban spaces and modern masses. By placing the development of different modernisms in France and Turkey next to each other, it suggests that the domain of the modern monument lies between the territory of the nation-state and the interiority of modern architecture.

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