CIP A 2003 XIX 11 ' International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey 
will provide readers with basic information on the work, which 
has been done until recently, and the planned further steps 
towards a multiple approach for continuous monitoring of the 
local changes and the development of preventive maintenance 
programs. 
Street scene in the old part of the town, Goreme 
2. CURRENT SITUATION 
UNESCO listed the unique area of Goreme-Cappadocia as both 
a cultural and natural World Heritage Site in 1985. Over the last 
decades modernization and mass tourism have brought 
fundamental changes to Cappadocia’s environment. The region, 
which had existed on a subsistent traditional farming economy 
for many centuries, went through rapid changes. Tourism and 
modern developments caused many of the young generation to 
quit with the hard local traditional life and search for a new 
future based on a modern infrastructure and the rise of the 
tourism market. As there had only been about three pensions in 
the village of Goreme in the year 1983 compared to almost 
eighty nowadays, the traditional life in the village went through 
dramatic changes including the loss of tradition and major 
uncontrolled building activities. 
Today it is very hard to find a traditional cave dwelling, which 
is not transformed into a pension or a modernized house. Most 
of these new built houses hardly respect to the old 
characteristics of the local way of architecture. Building forms, 
which had been different from Cappadocian village to village in 
former times, are now replaced with standard construction and 
decor elements without any sub regional differentiation. The 
result is a rapid loss of the particular historical character of the 
different Cappadocian villages, which sometimes originate from 
different cultures and ethic groups, like the old orthodox Greek 
groups for instance. 
Even being protected by UNESCO and the Turkish Ministry of 
Culture and Tourism as well as the Forest Ministry (national 
park) till now no sustainable master plan has been developed 
which is based on the requirements and needs of the region and 
local people. Uncoordinated building activities both concerning 
tourism and the urbanisation caused by general development are 
hardly acceptable for a sustainable future of the region as a 
World Heritage area. On governmental side, many old local 
cave dwellers of the traditional parts of some Cappadocian 
rock-villages have been removed to new subsidized houses 
provided and planned for the local population without any 
respect to their traditional needs as traditional farmers, (“afet"- 
program of the 1970’s). Returning guest workers from Europe 
introduced new ways of building ideas and prestigious life 
style. General urbanisation, modernization and the extensive 
growth of the tourism market next to new building materials 
caused dramatic changes to the villages. 
Unfortunately existing controlling instruments like the local 
protection board of the Ministry of Culture, UNESCO and the 
local authorities only have a small impact on saving the 
traditional habitat. Architectural and other study groups from 
Turkish and international universities reflected on some of the 
spatial changes in limited projects but till now there is no 
independent Site Commission involving responsible 
professionals from different fields for continuous monitoring 
and diagnose of the rapid changes happening in Cappadocia. 
The decay of tradition, vernacular cultural wealth and the 
unique Cappadocian building style is obvious all over the 
region. Further more, even permitted projects done by 
professional architects sometimes do not really respect the 
micro cultural aspects of traditional regional housing and design 
forms. 
Till now activities by UNESCO concentrated mostly on the 
restoration of Byzantine churches and the protection of the art 
history of the region. Regional laws like the ban of future cave 
carving have been introduced. So the vernacular tradition of 
creating cave houses officially stopped. Today most of the new 
regional construction is happening in a way, which is by no 
means a proper answer to the ideas behind the claim of a World 
Heritage Site. More and more traditional houses are getting 
destroyed or sometimes redesigned in an often kitschy way. 
Central courtyart and traditional Cappadocian 
“kemer ” house in Goreme