MÜZE OLARAK İŞLEVLENDİRİLEN ANITSAL YAPILARIN TRABZON KIZLAR MANASTIRI ÖRNEĞİ ÜZERİNDEN DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ

Monuments are important assets that contain a lot of information about the culture, architecture, way of life of a given region. The gradual shift in their user profile over time means that they either survive and maintain their function through restoration, maintaining, or that they get demolished to keep up with the times. This study aims to evaluate the function of museums (a common means of repurposing historical buildings). For context, we will focus on the Kizlar Monastery in Trabzon, Turkey, which opened in 2021, and its particular pros and cons. There are two stages. During stage one, we collated data by investigating scholarly literature and examining archival records. We also analysed the monastery’s present conditio by conducting on-site surveys of it. During stage two, we probed how it has been repurposed as a museum, by looking at it from spatial/functional, environmental, sociocultural, and economic points of view. Our findings reveal both the pros and cons of the transformation process. We concluded that it needs to be given a second function that ties it better into its environs and with other (national) monuments so as to better reinforce its conservation as well as give it a sense of continuity for cultural tourism within the region.