Bergama Traditional Settlement

Bergama entered Turkish rule in the 14th century after the collapse of the Anatolian Seljuk State at the end of the 13th century, with the first Turkish settlement forming around the Grand Mosque. By the 18th century, the region’s population increased due to water supply projects, and construction and repair activities during the Karaosmanoğulları era. By the late 19th century, although Muslims were the majority, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and foreigners lived in Bergama. In 1878, a large number of immigrants from Rumelia were settled in Bergama, and there was population movement during the Balkan Wars and World War I. During the Greek occupation in 1919, the local population took refuge in Soma, and Greeks left Bergama in 1922 due to the population exchange. Bergama reflects the Anatolian Turkish city structure of the Ottoman Period. It is thought that the Ottoman period settlement began around the Seljuk Mosque (Selçuk District), which was built during the Karesi Principality Period in the early 14th century and whose minaret survives to this day. Between the 14th and 19th centuries, the city continued to grow and develop outside the walls, with mosques, prayer rooms, baths, madrasas, libraries, and fountains. The flood in 1842 and the fire in 1853 largely destroyed the traditional city fabric, damaging houses, shops, and inns. (Binan, 2018, pp. 29-35).

With the beginning of archaeological excavations in Bergama, the city became prominent for its archaeological remains, and little importance was given to documenting and preserving urban heritage areas and traditional civil architecture. In fact, about 30 houses, shops, and stores adjacent to the inner and outer walls of the Red Basilica were demolished with the excavation work that began there in 1932. According to the urban planning report of 1943, the construction system of traditional Bergama houses was mentioned as consisting of 4000 two-story buildings made of stone, mudbrick, and wood. (Binan, 2018, p. 39).

North of the Bergama Stream, in an area called the Castle Region, there are dense western-influenced houses dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries next to traditional houses (Turkish House), while to the south of the Stream, detached traditional houses with open outer courtyards prevail. The influence of religion is quite dominant in Bergama’s urban heritage and traditional housing structures; neighborhoods have generally formed around a place of worship, composed of congregation members. However, it is known that non-Muslims sometimes resided in Muslim neighborhoods as minorities during the Ottoman Period.

In his book “Urban Cultural Heritage Inventory and Analysis,” Binan describes the housing architecture as follows: “Single-story houses with a spatial arrangement centered around a courtyard functioning for common circulation and utility area, outside of service spaces like barns, storage, and kitchens, consist of a main module of a room and an open hall in front. In two-room examples, depending on the direction of attachment of the second room to the open hall, open-outer or open-inner hall plan types are seen… The simplest house types are single-story, single-roomed houses with a gable roof. Although there is not complete continuity in the development of houses and settlements in Bergama, as in most cities of Anatolia, the earliest examples of traditional houses, which are without a hall, surround the courtyard on two or three sides, similar to the peristyle house type of ancient Pergamon. Evaluations regarding the dating of Bergama houses show that the oldest surviving houses have an open-outer hall plan type. Open-outer hall houses from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century are generally two-roomed; however, in examples where the number of rooms increases, one of the rooms extends the width of the hall or is added perpendicular to the direction of the hall. An open-outer hall house surrounded by sloped walls and with lattice top windows carries the same characteristics as the 18th-century traditional Turkish House described by Sedad Hakkı Eldem with an outer hall and lattice top windows… Two-story, open-outer hall houses are described by the people of Bergama as ‘haneyli’ or ‘hanaylı’ houses. In single or two-story open-outer hall houses, independent storage, barn, oven, and other service spaces surround the courtyard. The toilet is located in the courtyard and away from the house. In addition to single-story, outer-hall houses, examples featuring an open-inner hall (eyvan) situated between two rooms and facing the courtyard have also been encountered. In these examples, the spaces shown as halls in the ground floor plan of the house were originally open but were later enclosed. By the end of the 19th century, in addition to open-outer hall plans, closed-inner hall plans also began to be commonly used in single and two-story traditional houses. The number of single-story building examples where the open-inner hall was later enclosed increased during this period. Examples of houses where the number of rooms opening to the inner hall increased and the inner hall extended have been documented. In the north of Bergama Stream, where non-Muslims lived, there are traditional houses with inner halls. The hillside settlement inhabited by Greeks and Armenians until the beginning of the 20th century consists of areas dense with Western-influenced houses, which appear masonry but have outer walls attached to a wooden frame system mixed with stone masonry, without courtyards or with small courtyards at the back. In Western-influenced houses from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, closed-outer hall, single or two-story examples are common, symmetrically and asymmetrically divided within themselves. It has been determined that houses sitting on wider parcels generally have closed-inner hall plan characteristics. Among Western-influenced houses, some examples from the beginning of the 20th century have plan types where the hall has been transformed into a hallway and a corridor space has been created. Before the second half of the 19th century, in the flat area south of Bergama Stream where Turkish houses were dense and in the hillside settlement north of the Stream where minority houses were located, traditional houses of the same characteristics were built. Again, among Western-influenced houses from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, closed-asymmetrical outer hall or closed-corner outer hall examples were also commonly seen alongside single or two-story, closed-inner hall ones. Additionally, plan examples highlighting the transition process from traditional planning to Western-influenced houses are also found.” (pp.167-173).