Remains from a Demolished Cultural Heritage: A Historical House in Karaagac

Abstract

Reflecting the historical, cultural and sociological characteristics of an era, historical houses are one of the building blocks of society's identity. However, today it is observed that these buildings were abandoned for various reasons and then demolished due to the lack of maintenance. The example examined in this article is a traditional house that was documented ten years ago and demolished in a later period. The building which contains the general characteristics of the traditional residential architecture in Karaagac consists of a basement and ground floor. Built in the nineteenth century, the house consists of a gable roof covering the rectangular plan (inner sofa plan type) with a backyard and extension. In the 21 st century, historical buildings have been abandoned because of some reasons such as, not meeting the changing needs for housing, heirs' not compromising, not being able to compensate maintenance and repair cost. After their abandonment, it was determined that the building was destroyed and then its wreck was removed. It is suggested to use cultural heritage for preventing them from facing this situation in this study. Because a cultural heritage requires continuous maintenance and repair, a sustainable preservation will be needed.With this study, it is aimed to bring the remaining data of a destroyed cultural heritage into the literature and to determine what needs to be done before reaching the demolition process. The second aim is to encourage a sustainable preservation of the cultural heritage while considering preservation-usage balance. In this article, literature review is used as a method. The material of this study consists of building survey, building survey report and photographs of the traditional house.