Design + anthropology: An emergent discipline

This chapter discusses the production and consumption of design and modernity through design practices in Turkey. The chapter discusses how design concepts and practices operated in transforming and constructing social, cultural, and civic identities. The chapter also shows how social construction was instrumental for consuming contemporary designs associated with the convoluted notions of Westernization and modernization. Nineteenth-century Ottoman palaces, such as Dolmabahe and Beylerbeyi were seminal examples of architectural, interior, and landscape design representing the convoluted notions of contemporary and Western identities during late Ottoman rule. During the early Republican era, foreign architects and planners, mostly from Germany and Austria, were invited to Turkey to construct the new capital, Ankara, and its governmental buildings. Comparable to Nizami Bey’s illustrations of interiors mentioned above, they were a strong contrast to the eclectic Western interpretations and cluttered interiors with porcelain bibelots, crystal and silver accessories, textiles, and lace cloths.