Spatial Memory of Electrification

The aim of this book is to search for the process of electrification in Turkey and how it is materialized in urban space at different scales. Looking for the effects of electrification through making a discursive analysis and bearing in mind the objects in substance, concerning the practice itself, and searching for the transformations in the urban space and in urban living are the main objectives of this research. Consequently, popular media will be the main source to look for how electrification was materialized and depicted in the publicity. The popular publications of the period like; magazines, newspapers, films are going to be investigated and reread in order to decipher how discursive formations were constructed. The intervals of the research period are the heydays of these Modernist discursive formations, mainly the 1930s; starting from 1928 the foundation of Ankara Gas and Electricity Factory which is the symbol and generator of electrification in the new capital Ankara, and ending with 1938. The theoretical framework of the thesis will take the “modernity project” in the Turkish Republic, focusing on how collective memory and social identity was constructed at that time.