Analysis on Traditional Houses in Ortahisar and Ortamahalle, Trabzon

In this paper, urban dynamics and change of the city of Trabzon is examined through traditional houses. The story of Trabzon, which is a Black Sea city, has been shaped under the rule of many different cultures and civilisations. The city was a meeting place for Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman cultures, and enhancing its defensive potential thanks to the position of control in the Black Sea. Until the end of the 19th century, the perimeter of the city centre was drawn by the lines leading to the Castle (Demirkaya, 2014). In this research, first, the historical context is visualised then, the focus point is built on the houses. The main question is, in such segmented historical context, what kind of a journey houses have been and are going through, both typologically and socio-culturally, from first empire Komnenos to the Turkish Republic. The main cases of the paper are Kaleici (which is between Upper Town and Lower town) Ortahisar houses, the heart of the old city; and the Ortamahalle settlement still hosting beautiful cases of Trabzon houses, is also included. Methodology is adopted in the paper as three stages. The first level of investigation has the bases on archival research, used for the documentation of buildings chosen as case studies. The second level of analysis concerning the building elements and their structural characteristic required the use of tools of direct in site observation. The data gained via photographs gave the sources for obtaining representations, to understand the morphological characteristics traditional houses in their place. The third level of analysis concerned the neighbourhood scale and meant to reveal the urban forces of the urban settlement. In Ortahisar, five buildings are identified as case studies. In Ortamahalle, four buildings located together as one compact district while Ortahisar is more spread within the context. They differ in their period of construction, state of conservation and current usage. Urban analysis and formation of traditional houses of Trabzon as a complete is missing in the literature. The paper aims to create a comprehensive analysis by completing this gap with analysis in the two case neighbourhoods’ houses. The research also points out the underlying reasons behind the selection of the location to settle by highlighting the socio-cultural degradation in that period. How this degradation affects the diachronic transformation of the city and how is the effect of that on the contemporary town today is an outcome of the paper following the analysis.