Mimari travma: Savaşın kentsel hafıza üzerindeki etkilerinin prizren ve yakova bağlamında incelenmesi
Architectural trauma: The investigation of the effects of war on urban memory in the context of Prizren and Yakova
Yazar: HADİS ABDULA
Danışman: DOÇ. DR. OZAN ÖNDER ÖZENER
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Mimarlık Ana Bilim Dalı / Mimari Tasarım Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2019
Konu: Mimarlık = Architecture

Özet:
İnsanlık tarihi boyunca süregelen bir olgu olan savaş, bir yandan can kaybı ve birçok zayiatlar yaşatmanın yanı sıra, kültürel anlamda da geri dönüşü olmayan hasarlar bırakır. Hedef aslında fiziksel bir objeye saldırmaktan çok, bir düşünce veya ideolojiye saldırmak ve onu yıkıma uğratmaktır. Bu nedenle de, kentlere yapılan saldırılar, bir noktada, kentin hafızasına yapılmış saldırılardır. Kentsel hafıza ise kentin fiziksel bütünlüğünün yanı sıra, onu anlamlandıran değerlerin, geçmişin, kültürün, kimliğin ve yaşanmışlıkların birlikte var olması ile oluşur. Bir diğer deyişle, kent içinde yaşayan kentlinin kolektif hafızasının mekansal temsilidir. Kolektif hafıza, kentle birlikte hatırlar ve kentle birlikte unutur. Bu nedenle, savaşın getirdiği yıkım, kentsel hafızayı silmeye veya dönüştürmeye yöneliktir. 
Bu noktada savaşın kentsel hafızaya etkisini sorgulamayı amaçlayan çalışma, 1999 Kosova savaşı sırasında hasar görmüş olan Prizren ve Yakova kentlerine yoğunlaşmaktadır. Bu kentlere yoğunlaşılma nedeni, kentlerin zengin bir tarihi geçmişe ve kültürel mirasa sahip olmalarının yanı sıra, iki kentin aslında farklı yıkım süreçlerine maruz kalmış olmalarıdır. Yakova kenti 1999 savaşı sırasında yıkıma maruz kalmışken, Prizren kenti bazı istisnai yıkımlar (Prizren Birliği Binası) dışında 2004 ayaklanmasında yıkımlara sahne olmuştur. Bu doğrultuda, çalışmada ilk olarak kent ve hafıza kavramları incelenir ve bir kentsel hafıza sorgulamasına gidilir. Sonrasında savaşın yıkımına odaklanılır ve tarih boyunca yaşanan yıkımlara değinilir. Kent kırım, savaş mimarlığı, kültürel soykırım, mimari travma gibi kavramlar üzerinden kentsel hafızanın yıkımının kavramsal sökümü yapıldıktan sonra savaşların kentleri neden hedef aldığı ve yıktığı sorgulanır. Bu sorgulamalar sonucunda hafızanın yıkımı mimari travma kavramı çerçevesinde değerlendirilir.
 Savaş-yıkım ve kentsel hafıza arasındaki ilişkilerin kapsamlı bir şekilde incelemeye odaklanan bu çalışma, niteliksel araştırma yöntemlerini kullanarak kentleri hem fiziksel hem de fenomenolojik anlamda ele almaktadır. Örnek çalışma alanları olarak yoğunlaşılan Prizren ve Yakova kentleri, özellikle 1998-2004 yıllarında yaşanan yıkımlar üzerinden değerlendirilmişlerdir. Kentler tarihleri, gelişimleri, tarihi katmanları, makro form, mimari kültür, stil ve simge yapıları ölçeğinde değerlendirilerek özellikle kentsel hafıza ölçeğinde bağlamsal bir altyapı oluşturulmuştur. 
Kentlerin savaş sırasında yaşadıkları yıkımları, savaş öncesi ve sonrası yaşanan değişiklikleri kentlinin gözünden anlayabilmek için, kent sakinleri, mimar, sanatçı ve gazetecilerle görüşmeler yapılmıştır. Kentin tarihi dokusuna, multi-kültürel sosyolojik yapısına ve önemli tarihi eserlerine odaklanan açık uçlu görüşme sorular ile, kent sakinlerinin gözünden, kentte savaş öncesi ve sonrasında yaşanan anlamsal ve strüktürel değişikliklerin tespit edilmesi hedeflenmiştir. Elde edilen veriler, arşiv taramaları ve medya araştırmaları ile karşılaştırılarak yorumlanmıştır. Yapılan karşılaştırmalı çalışmalar ile, savaşın kentlerde nasıl bir iz bıraktığı, yaşanan mimari travmanın kentsel ölçekte karşılığı ve kentsel hafızanın bu travmadan nasıl etkilendiği ortaya konmaya çalışılmıştır.

Abstract:
As an ongoing phenomenon throughout the history of mankind, wars not only cause loss of lives and many casualties, but also cause irreversible damage in the cultural sense. The aim is not simply to attack a physical object, but to attack and destroy a thought, an idea and ideology behind it.Therefore, it could be said that wars actually target memory. The attacks on the cities are in a way the attacks on the city's memory. The memory of the city or 'urban memory' is formed by the physical integrity of the city as well as its history, culture, identity and experiences. In other words, it is the spatial representation of the collective memory of the citizens living in the city. Collective memory remembers with the city and forgets with the city; therefore, the destruction caused by war is directed at erasing or transforming urban memory.
Cities are places where memory is stored, where identity and ideas are transformed into physicality. In particular, certain spaces or structures of cities gain importance in terms of representing the identity. And that's why Andriç chose to tell the story of a society, or a city, over a bridge (Drina Bridge), or why why the Mostar Bridge was destructed with the motivation to blow Bosnian People or why they targeted the giant Bamyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan; these structures are the most important representatives of memory and stand out with their semantic values rather than their physical integrity. As one of the most important outputs of war, destruction has both physical and semantic dimensions.In the cities, which could be considered as the symbol of civilization, there is a destruction process against the values, identity and urban memory, as well as the destruction of the elements of the city. In attacks on architectural structures, it can be assumed that the real purpose is to destroy the history, culture and identity of the civilizations that lived there, and the demolitions experienced in this respect areat some point likened to cultural genocide. Because, as in the genocides, in the cultural genocide, structures belonging to a particular ethnic or religious group are selected and systematically destroyed. The aim is to eliminate the traces of the ethnic group. From this point of view, it is better understood why the symbol structures are targeted in wars. Numerous examples can be given to illustrate how the physical state of urban memory and cities have been destroyed due to wars throughout history. Starting from the demolitions of civilizations, such as the cities of Troy and Carthage, as well as the Aztecs, in recent history cities such as Warsaw and Dresden, which were destroyed in world wars I. and II. are some of these examples. These demolitions are generally discussed in the literature under the titles of urbicide and warchitecture, which means the death of the city or killing cities. These debates are generally focused on the devastations that the physical integrity of the cities are subjected to, and they have been studied by conducting analogy between the notions of genocide and war.
Recent wars and demolitions, especially in the example of disintegration of Yugoslavia, have important data on the trauma that have been experienced on urban memory. Especially due to the destrucitons carried out in Yugoslavia have been declared as part of the genocide and the crime against humanity in Hague hearings, it is valuable to study the cultural genocide that have ben conducted on cities. At this point, the study, which aims to question the effect of war on urban memory, concentrates on the cities of Prizren and Yakova (Gjakova, Djakovica), which were damaged during the 1998-99 Kosovo war. Besides the fact that the cities have rich historical pasts and cultural heritage, the reason why these cities have been selected is because both cities had experienced different destructions in different time periods despite their close locations. The city of Yakova and especially the old town was exposed to great destruction in the 1998-99 war. As is the case throughout Kosovo, many mosques, historic Ottoman mansions, shops and 'tekkes'or dervish lodges were destroyed.Therefore, Yakova is examined as an example of a city damaged during the war. On the other hand, Prizren did not receive any significant injuries in the city centerduring the war, except the 'The League of Prizren Building'. Nevertheless, there were many demolitions in the city and villages, as in the whole of Kosovo. However, during the 2004 uprising after the war, the city center also suffered destruction be named as 'reactional destruction'. 
At this point, the aim of the study is not to emphasize who made the destruction. The study focuses on understanding the destruction of architecture in urban areas and the effects of these destructions on urban memory. While previous studies focused on listing the demolitions, inventory preparation and the sociological dimensions of events during the war, the main purpose of this study is to analyze the sociological and psychological situation and then to focus on how destructions transform urban memory. In summary, the main motivation of the study is to question the traumas caused by the destructions experienced in the wars in the scale of urban memory.
In this context, firstly, the concept of city and the relationship between city and society, the formation of memory and its relationship with collective memory are questioned through concepts such as 'identity', 'genius loci', 'the image of the city', 'remembering', 'forgetting' and 'places of memory'. As a result, study focuses on understanding the formation of urban memory and there is an attempt to define the notion of urban memory. Then the destruction of urban memory is examined through concepts such as trauma and urban memory. The damages in the tissues and memory of the cities as a result of destruction, were interpreted as architectural trauma. After examining the destructions throughout the history through the lens of 'destruction of urban memory', the study focuses on the traumas exprienced on memory. Then, motivation and ideological backround of attacking and destroying cities are questioned under the headings such as 'politication of architectural object', 'semantic value and destruction', 'erasing past in order to shape the future' and 'destruction as a medium of revenge'. The discussions are backed up by examples of war-torn cities around the world and thus, it is aimed to conduct a more extensive inquiry. Next the conceptual background of the destruction of urban memory is discussed throuh concepts such as 'urban memory'and collective memory', 'trauma', 'destruction', 'culturocide', 'warchitecture' and 'urbicide'. As a result of all conducted inferences, the effects of war on urban memory is discussed under the chapter named 'Destruction of Urban Memory and Architectural Trauma'. The asnwer to the question of how does the destructions which are considered as traumatic events on memory are effecting urban memories is sought. 
This study, which focuses on the comprehensive understanding of the relations between war-destruction and urban memory, deals with the selected cities both physically and phenomenologically. Prizren and Yakova cities, which are concentrated as casestudies, were evaluated especially in the period of 1999-2004. The research is planned to progress through sample cities and events and can be considered as a case study within the framework of the qualitative research methods paradigm. In order to examine and compare the pre-war and post-war situations of the cities of Prizren and Yakova; literature review, archival scans, interviews and content analysis were conducted. In literature search, firstly, a study was carried out on the concepts of remembering, forgetting, memory formation under the title of urban memory. Afterwards, a literature search was conducted on trauma, urbicide and destructions in history. In the last chapter, in the context of the Kosovo war, the literature review is focused on Prizren and Yakova cities. Cities were investigated indetail for their history, urban development, architectural culture, style and urban landmarks for setting upthe context. Such historic thresholds and milestones were identified. Afterwards, interviews were made with city dwellers, architects, artists and journalists in order to understand the demolitions of the cities during the war and the changes experienced before and after the war. With the open-ended questions focusing on the historical texture of the city, its multi-cultural sociological structure and important historical monuments, it was aimed to determine the semantic and structural changes in the city before and after the war in the eyes of the citizens. The questions are generally based on the urban image and the changes in the memory of the city before and after the war. Finally, interviews were transcribed and coded according to occurred concepts, such patternsand frequencies were corroborated with the findings from the literature and archive research. The archive screening can be summarized as the compilation of pre-war and post-war photographs, urban plans, development plans and other studies. Documents were collected from municipal, library, books, dissertations, articles and websites. With the comparative studies, it has been tried to reveal how the war left a mark in the cities, the urban scale of the architectural trauma and how the urban memory was affected by this trauma. 
As a result of the researches and investigations, we can conclude that Kosovo, like all the other countries of the former Yugoslavia, has witnessed great demolitions and has been subjected to attacks especially on scale of urban memory. As mentioned earlier, these demolitions can be divided into two parts: the demolitions conducted during war and then the demolitions during uprising in 2004.  In Prizren, The League of Prizren Building, one of the greatest symbols of the Albanians was demolished during the war. This attack, which may be considered as the only destruction that occurred during the war in the city center, is actually an attack on the identity of an ethnic group and therefore on its memory. This case is one of the best examples of the politicization of the architecture and architectural object and the destruction caused a trauma in the memory of the city. On the other hand, the attacks on Serbian buildings and their religious structures in the 2004 uprisings can be considered as a reaction destruction and retaliation. It is noteworthy that the below castle area, which forms an important layer of the city and has become the skyline of the city, has been damaged during this uprising. In Yakova, the attacks against Albanians resulted in the destruction of the Albanian and Ottoman heritage and the Islamic structures in general. The historical center of the city has been demolished as a typical urban crime scene. In addition, many mosques, madrasas and especially the urban library were targeted. The targeting of the library, as in Bosnia, is in fact equivalent to the targeting of memory. An object that takes place in the memory of the city has been demolished and the archive store of an ethnic group (memory storage) has been tried to be vanished. All these demolitions are, in fact, an attempt to destroy an identity through the architectural work; the graphites which are drawn to the buildings during both demolitions are the strongest evidence. As a result, as always, inevitable architectural traumas occurred in urban memory.