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Title
New perspectives to save cultural heritage
Author
Altan, M. Orhan

CIPA 2003 XIX th International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey
As no major architectural changes on the outside and the
character of the building had been strived for, basic restoration-
permission was given by the authorities of the local protection
board. The concept of saving as much of the traditional building
and its particular character as possible and combine it with
actual modern functions caused many stages of compromises
which all had to be balanced very sensibly. Even though most of
the cave-dwelling dates back to early Byzantine times, many
rooms are now connected to the internet and have modern, but
carefully designed bathrooms and invisible under-floor heating
systems.
As the slowly growing restoration process continues, many
variations have been discussed with specialists, revised and
sometimes even rejected. The experience on the site shows, that
an „organic“ approach to restoration was needed to find
optimal, and in many ways, multifunctional solutions for the
site. Most of the details and complex contexts only became
obvious during the time of bringing the place back to life.
Therefore many aspects, which had been by no means clear at
the beginning of the restoration process, could be taken into
consideration during the restoration process. This method of
“organic restoration” is also an aspect of the traditional
vernacular way of the nonarchitectural building history in
Cappadocia, which developed considering the spatial needs of
the local population and regional resources.
4. RECORDING AND MONITORING OF THE
ENVIRONMENT
4.1. Photography
As the author also documented the area of Cappadocia in visual
ways for twenty years, he built up a negative-archive on clear
defined objects within the village of Goreme and surrounding
areas. The rapid changes of housing and building style became
obvious by comparing photographs from the same positions, but
from different time periods. With the use of computers,
scanners and digital cameras, a visual database had been created
to be able to search for specific headwords. The aim is to extend
this visual database and even cross contact with other archives
of regional photography in the future.
Example of a vernacular cave-dwelling site in change.
Goreme, 1984
¿py
Example of a vernacular cave-dwelling site in change.
Goreme, 1990
4.2. Plans and Survey
The general area of Cappadocia’s villages and surroundings is
surveyed and documented in ground plans of different
measurements via the land registry office. Scientific work and
research was done mainly in the beginning of the 1970’s to
document the general area in terms of nature, geology and art
history. Older works concentrated on Byzantine art and the
documentation of cave-churches and the multiple frescos of the
region. Of course, architectural surveys and detailed plans have
been worked out by numerous architects in Cappadocia for
individual building projects, most of them related to tourism.
4.3. Ethnographic Documentation and Oral History
The author’s interest as a cultural anthropologist is also the
ethnographic documentation of objects of traditional use. With
the methods of museology an ethnographic database had been
developed to record different, more or less „valuable” objects
from the local village. This includes all kind of materials and in
particular the „oral history” recordings related to the objects.
This database is just the beginning of a bigger approach of a
recording, which could include other samples of the
development of local and traditional architecture as well. This
can provide a clearer definition of resources, local knowledge
and historic values.
4.4. CD-Rom
A further result of Cappadocia Academy’s „platform c”
activities was a cooperation project with historians,
anthropologists, geologists and multimedia specialists to
prepare a scientifically well-founded CD-Rom on Cappadocia
to provide interested people with some basic information on the
area and multiple animated panoramic views. The CD will be
published at the end of 2003 by www.mediacultura.de.
4.5. Modern Technology
As most of the recent monitoring and projects related to this
field were done with more or less „classical” methods, major
focus must be laid on the use of new technologies for
documenting processes in Cappadocia. Rapid development in
computer technology and digital processes like photogrammetry
and its related fields provide new chances of documenting,
preservation and restoration of endangered architectural
monuments. This should include the documentation of selected