Visionary Representation as an Anomaly: Indeterminate Trajectories in Early Republican Turkey’s Art and Architecture Environment

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the Turkish context of the critical-creative visionary/avant-garde approach, which is analysed through various approaches, productions, actors, and discourses in the literature of art and architecture theory. It questions which local representations can be instrumentalized to handle the idea of the future, new and cultural interactions. Within this large research question, as a methodology, “indeterminate trajectories” built on a set of assumptions/intuitions and associative networks make open-ended discussions possible offering alternative perspectives on the concepts and contexts rather than a top-down strategy. In this way, it is suggested that the re-definition of the visionary, together with the role of representation and criticism, can open up some discussions regarding the Turkish context in particular. The content and the methodology of research are designed as a whole, and conceptual extensions opened up by the trajectories are mapped. This paper may be considered as a part of a larger research or thinking process. Here, the trajectories formed by the relationship between “the visionary” and “the avantgarde” are deciphered and their conceptual extensions are discussed. In this respect, the Early Republican Period of Turkey, contemporaneous with the modernist avant-garde in Europe, defines a temporal trajectory for the discussion, while the propagandistic booklet Güzelleşen İstanbul (Beautifying Istanbul) presents a visual-imaginary trajectory.