Balcony Railings as a Representative Element of Collective Memory: Balcony Railings of Ankara Apartment Blocks

Specialty about balcony as a building element is explained through its attribute of connecting different spheres that are public and private, the individual and collective, the indoor and outdoor (BK at the Biennale: anatomy of a balcony, 2014). Regarding it as the border between public and private, the individual and collective, the indoor and outdoor; this study aims to display the role of balcony railings of modern apartment block typology that developed rapidly through Flat Ownership Law in 1965, as a representative element of collective memory. Thus, the year 1965 marks a turning point in terms of housing production that in turn defines the new face of Ankara streets. The standardization of the apartment block due to the limitations of urban parcels forced architects or builders to search for means of breaking the monotony of this new face. One of the subsidiary elements were iron balcony railings that could be defined as “industrialized ornament”. They act as a retouching in an industrial way in order to aesthetize what is very ordinary. This tactic of building supports Heynen’s idea of dwelling, as in the first instance being associated with tradition, security, and harmony. The aesthetized balcony railings are a response to the dilemma created by the ordinary apartment block typolog and the idea of dwelling. The representative role of balcony railings will be exhibited through an archival study on balcony railings of Ankara, in which nine districts (Bahçelievler, Emek, Anıttepe, Maltepe, Kızılay, Küçükeast, Kavaklıdere, Gaziosmanpaşa, Çankaya) were selected as the case study. Around 1900 apartment buildings built between 1950 and 1975 that carried the characteristics of “modernized ornament” were photographed and the photographs were categorized according to the following criteria: style, form, material, details, use of color, etc. In parallel with Durkheim’s belief that every society exhibits and requires a sense of continuity with the past, this study aims to reveal that the archival of these railings as a representative element would remind Ankara dwellers of their shared memory.