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Conservation of the heritage of modern movement is a relatively recent issue, where the focus is mainly on the buildings more than the urban tissue as a whole. As a consequence, urban tissues of modern movement are destructed by various interventions, which make them highly fragmented or even lost totally. Thereupon, it becomes important to deal with the problem of fragmentation of the urban tissues of modern movement, re-trace their existing and lost components and conserve the existing ones by defining conservation principles and strategies.
Following the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, in order to have a planned ‘modern’ country, plans were prepared for a number of major cities of the country, while only a few of them were implemented. In that period, a German architect and urban planner Hermann Jansen (1869-1945), appears to be a significant planner in Turkey.
He prepared the plans for the major cities of the country: Ankara, the Capital City (1932), İzmir (1932), İzmit (1938), Mersin (1938), Gaziantep (1938) and Adana (1940).
The plan prepared between 1935-1940 by Jansen for Adana, an important city in southeast Turkey, is an important example of his plans, following the urban planning approaches and attitudes of the period, i.e. modern movement period. This plan is also important due to being among the rare implemented ones. As an important city with fertile lands for agricultural production and industry based on it, Jansen designed a city plan, with factory sites and accommodation for those to work in these factories, govermental and public buildings, residential and recreational areas.
Adana is taken as subject in this website because of its implementation and being under threat now. Due to its implemented area was located at the city centre, the modern movement heritage area became focus of interest and with the act allowing high-rise block constructions, it was threatened by demolishment and replacement with new buildings constantly. Hence, a process of rapid and extensive change in the city form and components occured, which resulted in the partial loss, disguise and fragmentation of the urban tissue of modern movement period developed with Jansen Plan. Today, the urban tissue and components of the modern movement are highly fragmented and thus, can hardly be followed within the contemporary town.
Focusing on this subject, a comprehensive spatio-temporal analysis based on data coming from visual and written archival and current documents, literary sources, aerial photos and site surveys was carried out.
The aim of this website is to re-trace Hermann Jansen’s plan in the existing urban tissue; reveal the existing components as well as lost components of the plan. This website is tried to be designed for mobile devices also, as it is thought that people might use it while walking around the study area. The website is basically uses the data and the photos that were gathered for the study, gives basic information about buildings, streets and green areas both existing and lost ones and offers a route to the users to see the reference points in the area.