Structural identities of Siirt Cas Houses in Anatolian traditional architecture

2.1 History and historical texture of Siirt

It has been determined that the history of the city of Siirt, which is a provincial center located in the southeast of Turkey, dates back to the Chalcolithic Age, Bronze and Iron Ages, starting from the Neolithic Age (8000–7000 BCE) as a result of conducted past archaeological excavations and other scientific research carried out in the vicinity of the city. As a result of the surveys and archaeological excavations carried out in 1963 under the control of Halet Çamlıbel and RJ Braidwood, within the scope of the “Southeast Anatolian Prehistoric Research Project”, findings from the Neolithic Age up to the Modern Age were determined. Akabe Road, which is estimated to date back to 3500 years ago, is located close to the city center, and remains from the Assyrians (Siirt Province Yearbook, 1998).

As a result of the archaeological excavations carried out in Türbe Höyük, Başur Höyük and Çattepe Höyük in and around the city center between 2002 and 2009, under the direction of Assistant Professor Haluk Sağlamtimur from the Department of Archeology of Ege University (Turkey), the first settlement unit found here was dated back to approximately 12 thousand to 13 thousand years ago.

In 3000 BCE, Semitic tribes, Babylonian, and Assyrian Empires ruled in Siirt. The dominance of the Hurrian and Mitanni kingdoms in the city lasted for 200 years, and then Siirt and its surroundings, were captured by the Urartians, and then were invaded by the Persians in the VII century BC. The domination of the Persians, which ruled for about 300 years, take possession on the city of Siirt along with all Anatolia as a result of the expeditions of Alexander the Great. After the death of Alexander, the Great, Selepkas, Persians, Romans in the 1st century BCE; Parthians and Sassanids in the 2nd century CE dominated the region. In later periods, the city of Siirt and the nearby region passed under the rule of the Byzantines (Gökçebağ, Feran Tepe, Kurt Tepe, and various temples and churches in other nearby villages belong to this period). In the middle of the VII century AD, the Islam Caliph Omar added Diyarbakir and Al Jazeera region, especially Siirt and Hasankeyf, inside their borders (Siirt il Yıllığı, 1998).

Although the attacks of the Byzantine armies in the X and XII centuries extended to Siirt, the Seljuks, who defeated the Byzantines in the Battle of Manzikert and opened their Anatolian gates, also took the Siirt surroundings under their sovereignty (Özgen and Karadoğan, 2009). The city of Siirt, which was in the hands of the Mervanis during the Battle of Manzikert, was invaded by the Mongols during the Artuqid period and later passed under the control of the Ilkhanids, the Celayirs, the Karakoyuns, the Akkoyuns, and the Safavids in 1500, and the Ayyubids in the XIV and XV centuries. After the Çaldıran war, which was lead under the command of Yavuz Sultan Selim in 1514, Diyarbakır and Hasankeyf, along with Siirt, were connected to the Ottoman Empire (Siirt Turizm Envanteri, 1991). Siirt district, which was affiliated to the Bitlis Province between 1892 and 1919, was turned into an independent sanjak with the Decision of the General Assembly No. 48 on September 26, 1919, and gained the status of a province with the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Today, the city of Siirt is rapidly developing towards the west with a population of approximately 175 thousand people, with a university educating 20 thousand students, as well as being home to many civilizations with its twelve thousand years of history, continues to exist as a cultural city (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1

An overview of the Siirt city.

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We can present the formation of today's historical urban texture of Siirt, the city cultures and civilizations dating back to the Neolithic Age in the following chronological order:

The period of Great Seljuk Atabeyliks is the period in which the first concrete evidence of the formation of today's historical urban texture of Siirt was observed. In the Seljuk period, which started with the conquest of Siirt from the Mervanis by Sultan Melikşah in 1083 and the domination of the Seljuks, the Ulu Mosque, the oldest structure of today's historical urban fabric, was built in Siirt (Fig. S1). Although date of built is not clear, the Mujahid Ishak Mosque was repaired by the Iraqi Seljuk Sultan Mahmud in 1129 and by the Seljuk Atabeyi Mujahid Ishak, who ruled Siirt in 1260 (Seçkin, 2005). The city started to develop around the Ulu Mosque from the XII century, and this region became a center where cultural, social, political, and economic activities were intensely experienced.

The Artukids, who ruled Siirt between 1102 and 1409, built the Cumhuriyet Mosque (1157) which is in the Ulus District and Asakir Mosque (1265) which is located in the Western District of the historical texture today. Siirt was captured by İmadüddin Zengi after the Artukids (İbnü'l-Esîr, XI, 94), was invaded by the Mongols and the city was largely destroyed. Later, the Ilkhanids and their successors the Celâyir people were dominated the city, before captured by the Akkoyunlus towards 1462 following the Timur invasion. The city came under the rule of the Safavids at the beginning of the 16th century (Tuncel, 2007). During the Principalities period, mosques, masjids, tombs were built in the city, but due to invasions and wars, most of these works were destroyed and could not stay present.

After the victory of Yavuz Sultan Selim against the Safavids in Çaldıran (1514), Siirt tied to the Ottoman lands. Mosques, small mosques, tombs, inns, Turkish baths, fountains and houses in the style of Traditional Turkish House were built in the city, which was a small city with four neighborhoods (Ras/Reis, Bağa, Beyder, Halfaniye) at that time. Some of these structures have survived and contributed to the formation of the historical texture. The Münkedir and Babuddarb mosques, Ayn salip fountain and sabats built in the late Ottoman period constitute a large part of today's historical urban fabric. In addition, most of the Cas Houses which are examples of traditional residential architecture of nowadays was built in the late Ottoman Period (T.C. Siirt Governorate, 2021).

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the Armenian revolts that took place in the close vicinity of Siirt also negatively affected the city of Siirt, and in these years, the city suffered much due to its proximity to the Russian and British fronts. During the armistice of Anatolia, city was occupied by the British army for a short time (Tuncel, 2007). Due to these events, the Ottoman Period was a destruction period for Siirt, where no progress occured in the urban fabric. Thus, no traces of the early Ottoman period following the Principalities period can be observed in the historical urban fabric.

Siirt became a provincial center in the Republican Period started in 1923. However, the city could not develop due to the negative effects of the First World war and Independence War and the effects of changing ruler countries. In this period, the streets in districts such as İnönü, Ulus, Sakarya and Dumlupınar, which were in the center of the city, were quite narrow and irregular and were deprived of a zoning plan. Towards the 1950 s, Tınaztepe, Batı, Ülkü and Karakol districts developed gradually. However, the narrow streets which were wide enough just for passage of walkers were left to the initiative of the landowners, except for the planning of the local administrations. Neighborhoods built during this period were not containing any transportation axis showing the characteristics of a street. In these neighborhoods, where there is no infrastructure and planning, no measures have been taken regarding human wealth (Özgen and Karadoğan, 2009).

Located in the Bahçelievler district, which has survived from the Republican Period, there is the Siirt Governorate old Government Office building (1945), which is an examples of Republican period architecture. In the Republican Period, especially in the years between 1950 and 1970, there was a radical change in the historical texture, and more planned constructions emerged compared to the old neighborhoods. In addition, the planning of the streets and boulevards that constitute the main transportation axes of the city has been carried out. In the Ottoman period, the structures that were built without a balcony due to religious influences were replaced by structures with balconies towards the 1940 s. In this context, Cas Houses, which were built in the first half of the XX century, were designed with balconies different from the traditional houses of the 19th century.

The historical urban fabric of Siirt continues to exist as a cultural heritage that transfers the architecture of the past to the present with the buildings built in different historical periods of the city. It is important to conduct restoration and reuse works with sensitive conservation awareness carried out by both the central and local administrations on these cultural properties which suffer from lack of adequate protection (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2

Historical and urban texture of Siirt today.

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2.2 Siirt Cas Houses

Siirt Cas Houses, which have an important place in Anatolian traditional residential architecture with their original characteristics, continue their existence in Siirt historical urban fabric, almost all of which are registered but require protection. The houses built in the XIX and XX Centuries were shaped by the influence of Ottoman Turkish-Islamic architecture. The architectural characteristics of the ten houses that we examined on-site with our fieldwork carried out within the scope of our research are as follows:

A culture of living based on agriculture and production; the privacy-oriented religion of Islam; and terrestrial climatic conditions with hot/dry summers and cold/rainy winters have been influential in the formation of the plan and space organization of Siirt Cas Houses. The courtyard and inward plans developed with these influences has emerged in three different forms as inner sofa, diwan and stony. Among these, the plan type with inner sofa was the most common plan (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3

Plan types of Siirt Houses, Plan type with interior hall (a), Plan type with diwan (b), and Stony plan type (c).

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The building material of the Traditional Siirt Houses, which generally have two floors, is rubble stone and the walls of the masonry construction system are built with a thickness of 60 to 120 cm (Ege, 2019: 98). The walls were plastered with the local plaster material Cas. Baking the gypsum-limestone (Jips) supplied from the surrounding of the city and turning it into powder was the method to produce Cas material (Aluclu et al., 2006).

To facilitate the transfer of the load of the walls of the houses to the ground, the outer wall surface was narrowed inward by about 25–50 cm on two floors and raised in an upward slope from the ground. So, the walls on the ground floors of the houses are built thicker compared to the upper floors. This technique made a truncated pyramidal/conical form that narrows from the ground to the roof as a common form in all houses (Fig. 4) (Alkan, 2018).

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Fig. 4

Conical form in Siirt Houses (Author − 2020).

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The covering system in Siirt Houses is flat roof. The flat roof formed by the earth fill is designed as an internal dome or barrel vault in some of the houses. This internal-external shape difference in the cover system is a specific feature in the region (Alkan, 2018) (Fig. 5).

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Fig. 5

Cover system of Siirt Houses (Author − 2020).

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The facades of the houses are usually plain. The main doors on the facades with rectangular wooden windows in the ratio of ½, are generally arched and decorated around the perimeter like the crown door. The floors are also surrounded by stone moldings (Fig. 4). The floors are covered with Cas material on both floors, and the mezzanine ceilings are formed with cylindrical wooden beams and wood coated in the opposite direction (Fig. 6).

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Fig. 6

Floor and ceiling in Siirt Houses (Author − 2020).

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3.1 Architectural identity

With the determination of structural identity, architectural identity, plan-space organization, material, construction technique, covering system, mass form, facade layout and original details emerge (Hacıhasanoğlu, 1996). The traditional life cultures of the societies, the surrounding climatic conditions in the geography, the local material richness, and the effects of architectural cultures of the location are the main factors for the formation of architectural characteristics.

As a result of the traditional Siirt residential architecture, the geographical location of the city in Anatolia, and the architectural effects of many different cultures experienced in history, its architectural identity has emerged as a cultural synthesis. Although the effects of Turkish-Islamic culture were dominant in the shaping of the structures that make up the traditional residential architecture in Siirt, the effects of different periods helped to shape architectural identity of the city. The architectural identity of traditional houses, which started with the transition to settlement life in Siirt, has developed with cultural transfers, effects of climate, local materials, and economic concerns (Demir, 2016).

In Siirt Cas Houses, plan types with inner sofa, diwan and stony form constitute the spatial organization, and the plan type with inner sofa is common characteristic. Generally, these two-floored houses are surrounded by high stone walls, include a courtyard, have an introverted planning with daily living spaces on the lower floors and spaces for night functions on the upper floors. In the houses built with the masonry construction technique, the building material was stone, and the plaster material was Cas. The cover system was a flat roof filled with soil. In some houses, the flat roof is shaped as a dome or vault in the indoor. Generally, cubic form houses have a plain facade with rectangular wooden windows. The arched doors are decorated with embroideries like the crown door, and the spaces between the floors are surrounded by stone moldings.

3.2 Socio-cultural identity

Socio-cultural identity in buildings was formed by the reflection and concretization of a cultural environment and lifestyle and through participation and sharing individuals and social groups. The settlements and designed spaces reflect the social lifestyle, economic-political structure, artistic-cultural, physical and material values of that period and society (Günay and Selman, 1994). In line with these values, which are unique to each society, architecture is shaped and building forms emerge from daily needs, actions, family structure, religious belief and even graves. Housing is not only a phenomenon that meets the need for shelter, but also a socio-cultural asset. There are three basic factors in the formation of socio-cultural identity: social, cultural, and religious.

When the social structure of the Siirt Cas Houses is examined, it was determined that the married family members continue to live in the same house with parents for a while, which makes continuing changes in the family population, whose main economic activities were agriculture and animal husbandry. The effects of this lifestyle added houses a flexibility in the plan, the possibility of adding and removing mass and volume depending on the change in the family population, the flamboyant main door design that symbolizes the economic situation of the household, the barn, woodshed, stove, and spatial formations where cultural foods are prepared and stored. In addition, physical planning, which strengthens neighborly relations on the street scale, manifests itself, and social relations between the residents of the houses lined up along narrow streets.

Although Siirt Houses are shaped according to the Turkish lifestyle based on the tent life of the Central Asia Turks, they have gained an identity with the influences of the cultures of different civilizations in the twelve-thousand-year history of the city of Siirt. It is known that Assyrians, Jews, and Muslims lived together at the same time in the city, had trouble-free neighborships, got married to each other and were even influenced by each other's unique food culture (Baştürk, 2007: 94). It has been determined that the architectural style of the sabats², arched and carved structures, the unique interior dome, and the flat laying technique origins from Syriacs and Jews, and the remaining characteristics are the architectural style, techniques and features sourced from Muslims. In the houses, the elements of the effects of the cultural richness on the architecture are the common space sofa rooted from the single space understanding of the nomadic tent life; plan types with inner sofa, diwan and stony plan shaped by the culture of day life, domed and vaulted cover system, presence of an important room as a headroom for guests, stone bench-cedar design, facade layout and decoration details used in the interior, generally to welcome guests.

The religious influence in Siirt Houses was realized by the Anatolian Seljuk and Ottoman Period, the dominance of Islamic culture-belief. Even though the city has hosted so many civilizations, the houses were planned by Islamic values in the entire interior-exterior design process, from street scale to building scale, and the separation of male and female environments with the effect of privacy. The effects of the privacy phenomenon of the region on the architecture can be revealed as introverted living and courtyard plan scheme, high courtyard walls, the number of rooms changed due to gender differences and the location of the rooms, the design of the ghuslhane/ablution room, the presence of door knockers and prayer-verse inscriptions on the main doors, the door -window direction, dimensions, and positions. In addition, when viewed at the street scale, the development from the inside to the outside with the street-building-courtyard relationship, the fact that the houses are located opposite each other on narrow streets, and therefore the buildings do not use balconies are also privacy effects showing that the building was planned in harmony with surroundings.

3.3 Climatic identity

The impact of climate on human activities is well known. The formation, development and settlement of cultural elements are affected by the climate. Material cultural elements such as clothing, food and residential culture vary according to the climatic characteristics of the region where they originate. The designs of the buildings are also shaped by the effects of the climatic conditions of the geographical regions.

Indoor-outdoor planning of the houses and mass forums have been shaped by the effects of climatic conditions in Siirt which is under the influence of the continental climate with hot and dry summers and cold and rainy winters. The cover systems of Siirt Cas Houses are domed in the interior and the high ceilings are an identity detail compatible with the continental climate.

Rather than semi-open space designs such as courtyards, porticoes and diwans in houses, the storage of important climate compatible agricultural product wheat, production rooms of grape molasses and kome, existence of units such as behu, tabok/cellar and çırtak contributes to the design of the climate (Yüksel, 2019). In addition, in the traditional residential architecture of Siirt, positioning the buildings on narrow streets in the north–south direction, door-window sizes, small skylights, the use of stone and Cas materials on the walls and the thickness of the walls, the presence of a stove and woodshed for cold winter months are the elements that affect the formation of identity of the houses by the climatic conditions.