The question of “national architecture” in Turkey overlaps with questions of historicism, cosmopolitanism, and identity in the late Ottoman and early Republican contexts. The search for a national Turkish architecture is best understood in the historical context of the pre-Republican period.

During the 19th century, shaken by new ideas, ideologies, and new technological developments, the Ottoman Empire transformed politically, socially, and economically. All this transformation and modernization found its reflection in the urban layout and architectural configuration of the Ottoman cities, which were mostly shaped by the works of Levantine, Greek, Armenian, and European architects. Historicism, eclecticism, revivalism, and neoclassicism defined the architectural language of the era, when novel building types with new techniques and materials started to appear, reflecting the modernization of the Empire and the multi-cultural face of the late Ottoman socio-political environment.

Architecture at the time was mainly practised by the members of the non-Muslim communities. Armenian and Greek architects, working as freelance designers, for the state and/or for the palace, dominated the architectural milieu. The Ottoman-Armenian Balyan family over four generations had a huge impact on late Ottoman architecture, their numerous designs in the capital establishing a new visual and spatial norm in Istanbul, reflecting the modernization ideology of the Empire. Successively, Krikor Balyan (1764–1831), his son Garabet Amira Balyan (1800–1866) and grandsons Sarkis Balyan (1835–1899) and Nigoghos (Nigoğayos) Balyan (1826–1858), and finally his great-grandson Levon Balyan worked as Chief Imperial Architects of the Ottoman state. The members of the family took part in the design and construction of numerous grand projects that include palaces, mosques, mansions, houses, barracks, factories, schools, clock towers, and police stations, creating their own school of architecture. Among hundreds of buildings designed by them, the Taksim Barracks and Nusretiye Mosque by Krikor Balyan; the Dolmabahçe Palace and Ortaköy Mecidiye Mosque by Garabed Amira Balyan and Nigoğos Balyan; and the Çırağan Palace and Beylerbeyi Palace, Hamidiye Mosque and Aksaray Pertevnial Valide Mosque, by Sarkis Balyan are among the most emblematic structures marking the urban fabric of Istanbul.

Members of the Greek community also played a prominent role in the architecture and in the construction of the major cities of the Empire, designing numerous buildings especially in Izmir and Istanbul and establishing a civic architectural tradition during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Many houses and apartments were erected combining traditional architectural forms with novel designs and Western decorative elements, creating a hybrid architectural language. Only a handful of these Greek architects were given commissions by the Ottoman government.  Vasilaki Iōannidīs and his son Ianko Iōannidīs designed Darülaceze buildings and several structures at Yıldız Palace for Abdulhamid II, together with the Balıklı Greek Hospital, Ioakimion High School, Taksim Aya Triada Church, and Zapyon High School for the Greek community of Istanbul.

By the late 18th century European architects started to function in the Ottoman Empire. Starting with Antoine Ignace Melling, who came to Istanbul during the 18th century, European architects took on projects and posts in the Ottoman capital, introducing Western architectural forms. During the 19th century, the modernizing Empire became a point of attraction for European architects, spearheaded in 1838 by the Italian brothers Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati; they took part in numerous prestigious projects including the restoration of the Hagia Sophia, the Empire’s first university (Darülfünun), the Ottoman state archives (Hazine-i Evrak), as well as hospitals, schools, churches, theatres, palaces, mausoleums, and embassies (Russian, Iranian, and Spanish). Another Italian architect, who worked in Istanbul as the Chief Architect of Abdulhamid II, was Raimondo D’Aronco (1857–1932). Invited to Istanbul in 1893 to design the buildings for the Istanbul Exhibition of Agriculture and Industry, he was active in the wake of the devastating earthquake of 1894 designing numerous fountains, mosques, and official buildings, and became, designing many buildings for Abdulhamid II in the Yıldız Palace complex, the first European architect to become the Chief Imperial Architect. D’Aronco also introduced the Art Nouveau style in Istanbul, which integrated well with traditional Ottoman timber architecture.

The Empire’s Levantine community was also active in the field of architecture during this period. Alexandre Vallaury was an Ottoman Levantine architect trained at the Paris École des Beaux-Arts. Following his return to Istanbul, he met with Osman Hamdi and was commissioned to design the School of Fine Arts. Vallaury became the founding instructor of the first architectural school of the Empire and  official architect of the Ottoman government. He designed many buildings of economic, political, and symbolic significance, taking commissions from the Ottoman elites, the non-Muslim communities, and resident Europeans: the Haydarpaşa Medical School (with Raimondo D’Aronco), the Ottoman Imperial Museum, the Cercle d’Orient building, the Pera Palas Hotel, the Abdülmecid Efendi Mansion, the Ottoman Bank Headquarters, and the Public Debts Administration building.

The search for a new Ottoman style, combining historical features and traditional forms in new building types, and creating an eclectic style were characteristic features of late-19th-century Ottoman architecture. The works of non-Muslim, Levantine, and foreign architects reflected the cosmopolitan and vibrant social structure of the Empire, representing a European-style modernity with their new functions, technological advancements, and novel designs inflected with local elements and historical forms. These localisms tallied with the rising ideology of Ottomanism, and the historicist gestures incorporating Islamic forms and traditional patterns would soon be called the First National Movement. The pioneers of this movement are two Turkish architects, Vedad Tek and Kemalettin Bey, who were influential during the last years of the Empire and the first years of the Republic.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the foundation of the Turkish Republic, with its nationalist and secular Kemalist ideology, transformed not only the country’s political and economic status, but also its social structure. History, language, culture, art, and architecture were reevaluated in the light of Atatürk’s nation-building strategy. The capital was moved to Ankara, and non-Turkish ethnicities were eliminated from the Republic’s body politic and self-image. With the promotion of “Turkishness”, the notion of an Ottoman identity and heritage came under a cloud. Official history, reflecting the state’s leading ideology, eliminated all continuities with the recently-collapsed Empire and replaced them with an idealized primordial “golden age” from the tribal past.

The discourse of architectural history was no different from the official nationalist discourse of the young Turkish Republic. It was based on the idea that Turkish architecture reached its apogee during the age of Suleyman and then began to degenerate, mainly due to Western influence, starting with the Tulip Period in the early 18th century. The appearance of non-Muslim, Levantine, or foreign architects, and their subsequent domination of the profession, was blamed for this decline of “Turkish” architecture. The works of the Balyan family, of Vallaury, and of D’Aronco, came to be seen as stains on Turkish architectural history, and were denounced as such in the Republic’s tenth anniversary issue of the magazine Mimar (“The architect”, 1933).

A new “national architecture” was needed. Republican architects strove to retrieve the pure essence of this national architecture from the Western-imported degeneracy of the 18th and 19th centuries and the bastardizing influence of imported baroque and Empire styles, culminating in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu and Pera districts with their non-Muslim, European, and Levantine population.

The anticosmopolitan ideas of the republican architects tallied with the “decline paradigm”, which was assumed to have affected the Empire’s military setbacks, territorial losses, and economic malaise, and indeed its entire social and cultural history. In the search for a “genuine” national style, the classical Ottoman, Seljuk, and pre-Islamic periods were embraced, while the architecture and culture of the late Ottoman era was harshly rejected.

But the adoption of an international modernism, even within the quest for a purified national character in art and architecture, posed a major dilemma. On the one hand, the young Republic accepted “Westernization” as its official ideology; on the other hand, earlier adoptions of Western and non-Turkish elements, no less part of the modernity of those years, were harshly rejected. The modernist architecture resulted from this eschewed historicist forms, but adopted traditional styles and decorative elements as part of an authentically Turkish-national style without Levantine, Greek, Armenian, or European admixtures.