Reading on Domestic Life Before and After the Period of Turkish-Greek Population Exchange From Historical Houses: Nigde Oral Mansion Sample

Abstract

After the compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1923, immigrants started a new life in another country. During this process, the need for shelter was tried to be solved by placing Turkish Muslim immigrants into the exchanged Greek non-Muslims' houses. In this study, data related to the changing domestic life and space with the user before and after the exchange in a mansion in Turkey were obtained with documentation in accordance with the architectural preservation discipline. The social, cultural, economic, religious differences of the leaving Greek family and the Turkish family that moved into it, were reflected in the transforming spaces of the mansion. Oral and written historical research on the building has been supported by documenting building following the architectural conservation discipline. Data about the life of the Greeks, the first owners of the mansion, which is located in the Cappadocia region in Nigde, can be read from the functions of the places, the workmanship of the building, the quality of the materials used, the stone and woodwork decoration features. The spaces used in the mansion have changed and transformed over time in accordance with the users' religious belief, culture and economic situation of the after exchanged period. Reading and interpreting the story of a historical building containing information about the period in this way has also revealed the adaptation of human beings to sustainable life and space. Thanks to this adaptation, these historical houses with a history of more than hundred years have been preserved.