MARMARİS: Awareness of Local Buildings and Culture
In November, I was in Marmaris, our beautiful coastal town, where I had been going from time to time since the 1980s. I tried to examine the castle and old buildings of this beautiful and partially preserved district.
The first good development I noticed while walking on the sidewalks where I left my young spirit was that the extremely loud discos, which became especially unbearable in downtown, were taken under strict control. Obviously, one or two of them have been moved a little further from the settlements. Just "a little further" because those parts of town had been filled with concrete buildings too.
Walking past the buildings with original architectural features, photos of which were printed many times on international magazines of eighties due to the more natural atmosphere of that period, I arrived at the main street. On the streets and alleys are quite nice, accurate, humorous sculptures associated with the meaning of the region. Of course, historical Marmaris stone houses with a very different architecture, especially their roof edge pedestals ... As many of them are now used as entertainment venues, the restoration, which can be qualified good, is hardly noticeable. Two factors are very important in this. The first is that there are too many unnecessarily large signboards. Second, there are no little information cards, as those in Istanbul Istiklal Street, about the history and architectural originality of buildings. Businesses could one signboard instead of three and could place information cards. Businesses could one signboard instead of three and could share the characteristics of the stone structure on a second board.
While I was traveling, something suddenly caught my attention: the names of the routes on the windshield of the minibuses operating within the town. All consisted of hotel names in the district. In the past, there were names reflecting the culture, social structure, and geographical features of the district. The names of those beautiful places have gone and replaced by the names of the hotels printed on stickers and posted on the side window of the minibus from top to bottom. I just stood on the sidewalk without knowing what to think... And of course I could not help but take a quick photo of it. How could it be on the earth? Why can't a stranger say "Wanna get off at Amphitheater"? Why not to say the name of the neighborhood? It can be said that foreigners want to see immediately the names of their hotels and just to take the bus. Not makes sense because mostly tour companies are dropping them to where they want to go. Foreigners who come to this coastal district are mostly British, French and then some Germans, which all come from countries that have seen the industrial revolution long before us. Wouldn't the citizens of the nations, which develop the technology with minimum harm to the nature, like to learn the names that are peculiar to the region they travel to. In other words, those minibuses are used to arrive somewhere and visit that locality. Do they ignore hundreds of thousands of years of historical culture in their own countries so that foreigners can find a place very fast? Since they are not caught up in the magic of ruthless capitalism as we do, they change their mobile phones every five years, not every six months as we do, and they are not in a hurry in traffic as we are. Some are unpretentious people who do not change their cars of twenty or thirty years if it they do not seem it necessary, although they are in good financial condition. In other words, they are not the ones who react twice by listening to half of things, understanding only a quarter and thinking none about it. We have to believe that the foreigners visiting our country are not in a hurry and they are discovering the architectural, natural and historical beauties of the place with a great curiosity and pleasure. It is painful to express but it is a truth; they use a book that we know but not use to easily find the address they want to go: a map! Therefore, in order to make things easy for them, how correct is it to list the names of the hotels on the side windows of the minibuses instead of the names of the historical and architectural places and routes that remind the mystery of the region, its spirit, its begone shiny years, and that have an incredible importance in our promotion activities?
One must have guessed that these names are the big and well-known hotels over there. Do not the localities have their own names? Sure they do. Çamdibi, Çıldır, Sanana, Tepe, Siteler, Adaköy, Çetibeli, Hisarönü, Söğütköy, Amphitheater, Taşlıca are the first ones that come to mind. There are many other names denoting localities. When I saw nicely printed books about Istanbul and Izmir at the sales point at the exit of Castle Museum, I asked, "Is there an architectural, archaeological or geographical book describing Marmaris?" The answer given, after cold glances, "So no, nothing like that ever happened." This shouldn't have been happened.. Anyway.
One wants to go back to the years when loyalty was a matter of pride. He wants to go and never come back. He wants to get lost there. While thinking these, it would be good to give an example that will make us feel embarrassed. Contemporary Turkish folk musician, and valuable theater and film actor Esin Afşar, who died in November 2011, tells us in a book what French artist Jean Michel Foucault had done when he was in Turkey in 1969. There was an ancient wooden bridge that they wanted to demolish so that trucks that transport construction materials to Türkbükü could cross the stream. Having been so sad that the wooden bridge would be turned into concrete and a road would be constructed towards the beach, the artist laid down on the ground and said "You cannot pass before running over me." Unfortunately, he was beaten ... He was trying to prevent the destruction of the wooden bridge, alone, with a spiritual power that is somewhat between sportsmanship and sacrifice. What did our truck drivers do? They bashed up the world famous actor and theater director! What a shame! An artist, who so much loved our country, our people, and that cute town that he said "If I die one day, I beg you bury me in Türkbükü", had tried to protect our values better than us.
As our esteemed professor, architect Prof. Doğan Kuban, has always said, for the future generations of our country to exist in the next centuries and millennia, at least 2014 onwards, we have to protect and make a good use of our historical architecture, place names, our modern art, all artists, engineers, and our language, and underground and underwater antiques and we need to work through scientific socialism and universal observation.
“DEVRİM”/REVOLUTION
The Transportation History Museum, built within the Science and Technology Collection Exhibition Area at the university, performs a very important function. But we need to pay more attention.
The Transportation History Museum, built within the METU Science and Technology Collection Exhibition Area, contains many valuable tools.
I had visited came METU Science and Technology Museum, opened in 2005, four years ago, and when I visited it again, together with 30 other people, at the end of last April I had a great enthusiasm. We visited the museum, the interior space of which was designed in the form of a hangar with a contemporary style in accordance with the gloom of the old times, together with a group of classic car enthusiasts to make observations onsite. First, they discovered and investigated the old cars that were lined outside with great curiosity. When they entered the indoor area of the automobile museum, they saw the first Turkish car, about which most of them watched movies, made researches and talked. Of course, they showed the greatest interest to the first Turkish car, the legendary "Devrim" (Revolution), which left devastating pains in each of us, and they took photographs with it. Its impressive look reminds us of the years when loyalty was a matter of pride. It had a barrier tape this time. Some of the visitors tried to touch it reaching from behind the tape. The movie shot about the car (Cars of the Revolution, 2008) aroused a revived interest in the car so many wanted to go in the car and observe it in details. Those who know, reflect, sense and read, sure, know it better. But those who only watch the "highest grossing films" do not care about our values are are not even aware of this miracle. Yes, unfortunately, some of our people became aware of the existence of such a car only thanks to the movie produced by director Tolga Örnek in 2008, and only then, their interest was aroused.Many of our people still do not know that exquisite automobile created by 23 Turkish engineers under the conditions of 1961. And some of those who knows something about it have incredible false information about the person who wants the vehicle to be built and about technical issues. So much so that some of them do not believe in the true story when one tells it, they laugh, and imply that it was actually you who had believed in false news. In today's infamous media environment, where the honest are not more courageous than the dishonest, many of the people who are to go into details of these topics are not around! We are in a time when people's perception of reality is destroyed. Apart from the media disseminating false information, one should create the awareness of the necessity of following the media organs that disseminate the truth. Forget about it. What we know is that the vehicle exhibited here is the model of that car built by Turkish craftsman specially for the movie "Devrim." The original is in Eskişehir Tülomsaş museum inside a glass section, and it is regularly operated and maintained by experts. Those who have received a sound education of arts can observe that the hexagon shaped display of the automobile refers to Seljukian architecture and its radiator grill has a honeycomb design.
Going back to our trip, young visitors watched the video depicting the foundation of the museum and directed questions and listened to the informative answers of the museum officer. Then they investigated the other cars and motorcycles. Spending minutes in front of each vehicle with admiring looks, touching them from time to time,
they were joyful and thoughtful. They read the information cards in front of each car including the solar-powered prototype vehicle produced at the university. By the way, it should be noted that; It must not have been easy to complete the establishment of this wonderful museum - an initiative, according to the promotion video, was started by the previous president of the university - and to convince the owners of classic cars, who have protected their vehicles for years, to donate them to the museum. At the exit, an elegant brochure prepared and printed by the university was handed out.
After all those positive observations, let's come to the points that we will share with the current president of METU. The group went out the museum with some bitter sentiments. Some of the young people observed that the blinker of one of the vehicles in the museum, was just stuffed aluminum foil. We discussed why all those wonderful automobiles in the wide area outside the building were not as well preserved and maintained as those within the building.
When I was there four years ago, the conditions of 50-60-year-old vehicles outside were definitely much in a much better condition than today. They are rushing towards ruin. Maybe they are not given the due attention since they are not as old as those inside. Why a larger building was not built considering the classic automobiles to be donated afterwords? Many classic car websites recommend and promote this museum and approximately twenty thousand people visit it every year, but there is not a link to the museums on the university homepage! Incredible! There is a signboard of a cafe outside the museum, but the cafe is closed. At least a sign indicating the cafeteria in Foreign Languages Building across the way could be placed even if the original cafe is closed because of the limited number of the visitors. The former president obviously was very keen on the museum, the work for which began in 2001. We kindly as the current president of the university to sustain the interest and care which this museum enjoyed before.
