Ankara: The Planning and Building of a Republican Modern Capital City

Ankara, also known through history as ‘Ancyra’ and/or ‘Angora’, is located in the central part of Anatolia with its historical centre (= ‘citadel’) rising 150 m. over the left bank of the Ankara River, a tributary of the Sakarya River.

The city served as the capital of the ancient Celtic state of Galatia (280–64 BC), and later of the Roman province with the same name (25 BC–7th century), although archaeological evidence from earlier periods such as Hattian, Hittite, Lydian, and Phrygian, indicate that it had been (continuously) occupied from the Neolithic Period onwards. In the Ottoman Period the city was first the capital of the Anatolia Eyalet (1393–late 15th century) and then the Angora Vilayet (1867–1922).

There are well-preserved examples of Roman and Ottoman Period archaeological remains within the city, the most remarkable being the Temple of Augustus (also referred to as the Monumentum Ancyranum) located within the district of Ulus constructed between 25-20 BC, on the ruins of an earlier site of a sanctuary to the Phrygian god Men. Hacı Bayram Mosque, the most significant religious Ottoman heritage site in Ankara, was constructed next to the temple in the early 15th century (Tent. List. Ref: 6124).

Although it had been a significant trade centre in Roman and Ottoman Periods, Ankara was a small town of about 20.000 population during the late Ottoman Period, mainly settled in and around its citadel. It had gained relative importance with the arrival of the railway during the late 19th century that affected the development of the town towards the west where the train station was located. However, the radical modern spatial transformation of Ankara took place after the establishment of the new Republican state and its proclamation as the ‘capital city’.

On October 13, 1923, Ankara was declared as the capital city followed by the establishment of the Republic of Türkiye on October 29. Replacing Istanbul, centuries-old capital of the Ottoman Empire, Ankara became the centre and the symbol of the new modern Turkish State.

Capital cities are symbols of state regimes and their values. Once Ankara was chosen as the seat of the new state, it was not only altered from a small town to a modern city, but was created anew as a national capital. The political transformation in the country was represented in the spatial transformation of Ankara that was sought to be an example for the development of other cities in the country, and would also symbolise the success of the Republic in its birth as a ‘modern’ city.

In the transformation of the modest little town of Ankara into the modern capital city of Türkiye, the planning and the design of its built environment were mainly influential. Initially, as a result of the need for a general layout for basic infrastructure investments, a plan was commissioned to the German architect Christoph Lörcher in 1924-25, defining the development of the city towards the south down the old town. After the partial implementation of this plan, an international competition was held in 1927 for the production of a comprehensive new modern plan for the urban development of the capital. The winning design was by the German architect Hermann Jansen, who proposed again the southward development of Ankara, from Ulus, the centre of the old city, towards the new settlement alongside the axis to be called Atatürk Boulevard after the founder of the new state. This urban planning effort made Ankara one of the pioneering examples of the early 20th century modern planned capital city development in a post-empire nation-state.

Thus, formerly an Ottoman town in and around the outskirts of the historical castle, Ankara developed from the 1920s onwards as a totally new modern capital city away from the old town towards the south where the new parliament complex and the administrative district as well as the President’s and Governor’s Residences would be located. According to Jansen’s plan, Ankara began to change and grow rapidly with the construction of various buildings mainly along the major north-south axis of Atatürk Boulevard in order to house the governmental, administrative, legal and financial facilities of the new state, as well as the transportation, health, educational, cultural and recreational facilities for the new society, and the new accommodation and housing facilities to answer the needs of the increasing population, especially bureaucrats and founding cadres of the new republic. Thus, the new social life of Ankara began to emerge with the formation of new public spaces during the 1930s and the 1940s as new buildings and also public parks and squares with monuments were constructed alongside the Atatürk Boulevard. These were designed in the modern and contemporary styles of the period by not only local but also many foreign architects mainly from German-speaking countries including Clemens Holzmeister, Ernst Egli, Bruno Taut, and Paul Bonatz.

Shaped as the modern capital city of the new nation-state during the first half of the 20th century, Ankara witnessed a new phase of planning and design from the 1950s until the 1970s. Following the population growth due to the migration from surrounding cities and rural areas after the Second World War, another planning competition was held in 1954. The winning Uybadin-Yücel Plan sought to shape the growth of the city around the existing settlement by keeping the central north-south axis intact. On the other hand, the booming need for housing resulted in new and higher constructions in contemporary international modern style of architecture around the central urban areas for middle- and upper-income groups, and squatter settlements at the fringe of the planned developments. The city was then separated into two different worlds in which the prosperous sections of the population lived in the south and the relatively lower income population lived in the north. Ankara thus became a city with two central districts: Ulus, i.e. the old city in the north, and Kızılay, i.e. the new city formed in the south, increasing the significance of Atatürk Boulevard as the main axis of not only spatial but also the social formation of the city. Ulus contains not only the modern urban fabric and architectural examples of the Republican Period but also a multi-layered urban landscape with remnants of a significant Roman city, and examples of Seljuk and Ottoman architectural heritage. Kızılay, on the other hand, stands as a central business district transformed from the first modern planned neighbourhood in the new capital, namely “Yenişehir” [En. trans. “new city”]. Both centres are still lively, and maintain the spirit of the modern republican planning and architecture ideals, although Ankara has grown beyond their limits.

There were various attempts to obtain and implement new comprehensive plans to control the growth of the city in the later decades of the 20th century; however, the predominant urban development pattern for Ankara could mainly be led only by urban plan modifications. This has resulted in the transformation of Ankara beyond the central north-south axis into a vast metropolitan area stretching on the east-west axis with a mixture of old planned neighbourhoods, new high-density mixed-use residential areas, and dense neighbourhoods transformed from squatters and illegal occupations of land. Today, with approximately six million inhabitants in its metropolitan region, the transformation of Ankara from a small town to a modern capital is a success story. Despite political and social problems affecting its urban identity, the crucial parts of the planned urban setting envisionaged after the proclamation of the Republic in the 1920s still stand eligible; and the multi-layered remains of earlier civilizations exist within the dominant modern built environment of Ankara. The street pattern, and the public buildings and public spaces, still constitute a distinguishing part of the central district of the city, signifying the successful result of the republican adherence to planned urban development and modern architectural design that have made contemporary lifestyle possible in Ankara.

With its built environment planned and designed from the 1920s to the 1970s, Ankara is an outstanding example of modern capitals of the 20th century, whose modernist urban layout and architectural heritage represent the new Republic of Türkiye, and still define the identity of the city. Approaching its centennial as the capital of the Republic of Türkiye in 2023, Ankara continues to acquire the integrity of its authentic modern identity that is witnessed in the still-existing public buildings of the new state, and the public parks and squares for the new society, constructed at Ulus and Kızılay districts and especially along Atatürk Boulevard as the main and now historical urban sites of the city. 

Criterion (ii): Interchange of international architecture and town planning approaches of the 20th century was formative in the planning and building of Ankara as the modern national capital of the Republic of Türkiye. With the social and spatial characteristics of the new state that were most extensively realised along Atatürk Boulevard and the two urban centres of Ulus and Kızılay squares located in the north and south of this axis, Ankara represents the contemporary modernization and nation-building processes, in which experts from Europe such as Holzmeister, Egli, Taut and Bonatz also played a significant role in the transformation of contemporary ideas and means of planning and architectural practice. Thus, the modern built environment of the capital of Ankara emerged as a result of the interaction of the existing local/traditional with the international planning and architectural approaches.

Criterion (iv): Modernization and nation-building processes of the inter-war period (after the First World War) shaped the formation of the new built environment in Ankara, as exemplified in the social and spatial qualities of Atatürk Boulevard as the main urban axis, and of Ulus and Kızılay districts as the main urban centres of the new capital. The identity of Ankara was thus formed in the first half of the 20th century (1920s-1940s), and re-formed during the post-war decades (after the Second World War) of the mid- century (1950s-1970s), witnessing and representing the modern features of the society and the built environment during the 20th century. In these periods, a unique synthesis of the international modern urban planning and architectural design approaches with the modernization process in Türkiye produced the built environment of Ankara.

Criterion (vi): The planning and building of the Republican capital city of Ankara was the role model for other cities in Türkiye for the transformation of the built environment in the country in line with the modernization and nation-building processes of the new state. Atatürk Boulevard and Ulus and Kızılay districts in its northern and southern parts, and public buildings and public spaces planned and designed along the axis and at these centres, are the main witnesses and representatives of the new social and spatial formation. The shaping of the new national capital city hence incorporated historical remnants of the multi- layered structure of its past, symbolised in the form of Roman, Seljuk, Ottoman and other traditions and Ahi culture, together with the modern living conditions of work, leisure and accommodation places.

As one of the earliest 20th century examples of building a capital city, Ankara’s authenticity is based on its modernist urban planning and architectural character that successfully incorporates the city’s historical layers together with modern lifestyle that symbolises nation-state ideals. The city of Ankara’s central districts Ulus and Kızılay, and its main axis Atatürk Boulevard, still host many well-preserved modern heritage buildings and sites, and a significant section of the urban layout of the historical centre still represent the urban macroform envisioned by the early planning interventions.

Although nearly a hundred years have passed since the early modernist planning and architectural  interventions in the city to build Ankara as a capital, and the city has transformed in time from a small town of about 20.000 to a large metropolis of about six million population, the majority of the urban road network, public spaces and squares, and public buildings of the early Republican decades still exist and are used in spite of some changes as a result of later redesigning and restructuring efforts. The modernist spirit of the Republic in its foundation, and its reflections on urban identity constitute the most prominent character of the tangible and intangible urban, architectural, and cultural heritage that has formed the urban identity of Ankara. The built heritage that is symbolic of the formation of the national capital city has been registered to the national inventory as mostly ‘monuments’, example of ‘civil architecture’, and/or are within the urban, natural and/or archaeological conservation area (=‘sites’) in accordance with the Protection of Cultural and Natural Properties Law (Kültür ve Tabiat Varlıklarını Koruma Kanunu) No. 2863, 23/07/1983 as amended by Law No. 5226, 14/07/2004.

Supported by professional and public advocacy, the conservation of the tangible and intangible modernist heritage is critical for preserving the integrity of the authentic identity of Ankara planned and built as the Republican capital city.