Şehircilik tarihçisi olarak Ernst Arnold Egli
Ernst Arnold Egli as a historian of urbanism
Yazar: VINZENZ HORMANN
Danışman: DOÇ. DR. VESİLE GÜL CEPHANECİGİL
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Mimarlık Ana Bilim Dalı / Mimarlık Tarihi Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2020
Konu: Mimarlık = Architecture

Özet:
Bu tezin ana aktörü 1927'de Türkiye'ye gelerek buradan 1935'e kadar mimar ve eğitimci, 1940 yılına kadar şehir planlayıcı, 1953-1955 dönemi arasında ise yine eğitimci ve şehircilik uzmanı olarak faaliyet gösteren İsviçreli Ernst Arnold Egli'dir. Türkiyedeki faaliyetleri dışında 1947-1952 yılları arasında Lübnan'da şehircilik uzmanı ve plancı 1940-1947, 1952-1953 ve 1955-1974 dönemlerinde ise İsviçre'de yazar, uzman ve eğitimci olarak çalışmıştır. Bunların arasından Türkiye'deki faaliyetleri, öncelikle mimarlığı ve Akademi reformunda öncü pozisyonu değişik yayınlarda etraflıca tartışılmış ve aydınlatılmıştır. Bu tez çalışması ise Egli'nin meslek yaşamında tuttuğu kayda değer yere rağmen literatürde karşılığını henüz bulmamış olan şehircilik yönüne odaklanma gayesiyle şehirciliğe yönelmesinde etkili faktörleri araştırmanın yanında şehircilik tarihçisi olarak tutumunu değerlendirebilme ve bunu şehircilik tarihi yazımının gelişimi içine konumlandırma amacını taşımaktadır.
Yüzyılın başında Viyana'da mimarlık eğitimi aldıktan sonra Türkiye'de başarılı bir biçimde mimarlık yapmış olan birinin, mimarlıktan uzaklaşıp şehirciliğe ve şehircilik tarihine yönelmesinin arkasında yatan sebep ve motivasyonları araştırmak için ETH arşivinde bulunan anılarına başvurulmuştur. Tezin ilk kısmında üzerinde çalıştığı işler ve bulunduğu görevleri bir araya getirerek meslek yaşamı ana hatlarıyla aktarılmaya çalışmış, şehir tarihine ilgisinin somutlaşması ile sonuçlanan yolun izi sürülmeye çalışılmıştır. İkinci kısımda ise şehircilik tarihi çalışmalarının incelenmesine çalışılmıştır. Bu doğrultuda tez çalışması 1850 sonrası şehircilik tarihi ile ilgilenen çalışmaları ile sınırlandırılarak, ders notları ve kitaplarından ilgili bölümler incelemeye dahil edilmiştir. Seçilen çerçevenin Egli'nin şehircilik tarihi yaklaşımını olduğu kadar modern şehirciliğe bakışını anlamaya da imkan vereceği düşünülmüştür.
Egli'yi şehircilik tarihi yazımın gelişimi bağlamına yerleştirebilmek adına ise bu disiplinin yirminci yüzyılın ilk yarısındaki gelişimi, ağırlıklı olarak ikincil literatür üzerinden okunmaya çalışıldı. Bu esnada, Egli'nin şehirciliğe ilgisinin başında uygulamalarda yer alma arzusunun yattığını da hatırlayarak, tarihçinin şehre ilgisi yanında planlayıcının şehir tarihine ilgisi de ele alınmaya çalışıldı.
ETH'dan temin edilen ve deşifre edilen ders notlarının özetlenmesi ve değerlendirilmesi ile ise Egli'nin tarih yaklaşımına ilişkin izlenimler toplandı. Böylece örneğin derslerde tarihin, bir bakımdan mevcut durumu anlamak ve geleceğe dair saptamalarda bulunabilmek adına işlendiği ya da derslerin şehrin büyümesine ilişkin kaygıdan beslenerek gelecekte oluşacak olan şehir formuna yönelik araştırmaların ışığında uygulama odaklandıkları görüldü.

Abstract:
The main actor of this thesis is Ernst Arnold Egli, an architect, urbanist, educator, author and historian who worked in Austria, Turkey, Switzerland and Lebanon. This rather eventful life began in Vienna where Egli was born 1893 and where he lived until 1927. Here he studied architecture at the Fine Arts School where he later also became an assistant, but mainly practiced architecture in different studios as well as independently.
Appointed as the architect of the Ministry of Education of Turkey and as the head of the architectural department of the Fine Arts School in İstanbul he moved here and filled these roles between 1927 and 1935. In these rather influential roles Egli became one of the major players in the modernization of Turkey's architecture, both with the buildings he designed as well as in his position at the Fine Arts School and the importance this position held for the education of young turkisch architects. After the resignation from both positions, due to the changing work environment and personal problems with this change he was promptly given the opportunity to take part in some urban planning projects for some small towns in the south west parts of Turkey, on which he worked until 1940 when he moved to Switzerland. Here he continued his work on the plans for these towns and unsuccessfully tried to secure other planning jobs in Turkey. The search for occupation in Switzerland initially with little to no success ended when he started to get the opportunity to take part in the planning of the industrial zone of Zürih and later on the towns surrounding the city as well as an opportunity to give lectures about architecture and town planning of Turkey and other non-european countries at the ETH.
Between 1947-1952 he was appointed as the head of the planning department of the Ministry of Interior of Lebanon situated in Beirut. In this, again quite influential role Egli was responsible for the urban development of the land, the planning of its major cities, such as Beirut, Sidon, Baka, the issuing of new building laws and the initiation of a program for the protection of the national heritage. After a short stay in Switzerland primarily to be able to continue to give lectures at the ETH Egli moved to Turkey between 1953-1955 where he gave lectures at the university in Ankara and evaluated the situation of the planning activities in different reports and excursions. Returning to Switzerland for the last time in 1955 he continued to work on issues of urban planning and planning history most evident in his monumental publication "Geschichte des Städtebaus" ( History of Urban Planning), but also in his lectures at the ETH which he continued to give until 1967 and which resulted in 46 lectures given at the end.
Due to his architectural activities in Turkey being widely researched and discussed in different literature this thesis wants to shed light on his activities as an urban planner and more so as an urban historian as these parts of his activities are often overlooked, despite the important position they hold in his personal and professional life. For this purpose the thesis tries to define the development of his growing professional interest in matters of urban planning and urban history, evaluate his approach to urban history and discuss his position in the development of urban history writing in the first half of the 20th century.
The first main part of the thesis tries to give a personal view and summarization of Egli's professional life mainly evolving around his activities in the fields of architecture, urban planning and urban history. To be able to do this and evaluate the underlying reasons and motivations in his withdrawal from architecture, after having been practicing it very successfully in Turkey, and the facing towards matters of urban planning and urban history, the mostly unpublished autobiography which can be found in the ETH archives and consists of about 500 pages was consulted. By collecting personal evaluations of and information about his own works and activities from this source and supplementing it with information about the professional setting in the given country and time from secondary literature, his professional life, in which his ever growing interest in urban matters became quite visible, could be drawn out.
In the second main part of the thesis his works concerned with urban history after 1850, to be specific his lectures entitled "The City Development of Our Age", "The City and its Landscape from the Past till Today", "150 Years of Urban Development Between 1790 and 1940", "Urban Development Between 1800 and 1960", "Problems of the Growing City" as well as the last parts of his book "Geschichte des städtebaus" ( History of Urban Planning) were examined. This focus on urban history after 1850 was picked in the belief that this time period set a context in which evaluations of modern urban practices could be interpreted together with thoughts on recent urban history. This was intriguing because firstly it set the opportunity to examine Egli's thoughts on the relation between contemporary practice and history and secondly it was seen as the time period in which an understanding of history, such as Egli's, that mainly consists of examining the past to learn for the future is best reflected.
To be able to put Egli and his approach to urban history in perspective to the development of urban history writings of the time, the developments of the field in the first half of the 20th century had to be examined which was achieved mainly by using secondary literature. To fully comprehend Egli's position in urban historical writing the interest of historians in the city as well as the interest of urban planners in the history of the city had to be examined. The state of the handwritten lecture notes from the archives of the ETH on the other hand required the transcription/digitalization of these sources. Only by doing this, the detailed evaluation of these notes was possible.
In the evaluation of the lecture notes three main concerns of Egli's approach to urban history could be witnessed. Firstly that history is used as a means and even seen as a necessity to understand the current situation in urban development. Secondly, that Egli's narrative is predominantly based on explaining general developments by looking at spesifik cities mainly Vieanna, Berlin, Paris, London, American cities and Swiss cities such as Zürih, Bern and Basel. Thirdly, it can be witnessed that Egli is mainly concerned with the problems of the growing cities. This topic can be considered as the main tune which every other topic such as city politics, green spaces, the speculation in the real estate business, the structural renewal of the city, only to name a few is based upon.