Bruno Taut and the Changed Conception of Modernism on the Eve of World War II

Bruno Taut's History, Language and Geography Faculty Building at Ankara University has received little attention in architectural history. As the work of an emigre architect, expelled from Germany in 1933, it is not only a product of Taut's broader horizons through his experiences as an exile in Japan and Turkey, but also as a result of his confrontation with the modernization process under AtatUrk's new republic. Beyond this, Taut's Faculty building issues a statement on the state of modern architecture in the late 1930s, where this type of public building was newly discussed in relation to different aspects of national representation, oscillating between dictatorship and democracy. This article explores the various facets that create this outstanding, unconventional and inventive building, as Taut's major and enduring project during his later years, at the edge of classical modernism.