Revisiting Modern Campuses Through Spaces for Leisure in Izmir, Turkey

Abstract

Division of working and leisure spaces as an early product of modern life has still its traces on urban context. Campus spaces, not only universities, reflect such a programmed structure related to modern everyday life. This paper aims to discuss the changing relationship between working and leisure on varying campus spaces, which embrace these two essential components of modern societies. Many campuses in early Turkey follow similar modernist organisational principles in their design and performs an original path in spatial transformation. Industry, education, and public service campuses, which were established in & Idot;zmir during the 1950s, constitute the spatial framework of this paper. The paper aims to trace the leisure areas of three campuses and examine this meticulously programmed life idea under the influence of the changing leisure spatial culture in Turkey from the 1950s to today. These spaces are articulated and examined by their dwellings and social interaction spaces. Besides, the social experience and individual perspectives of campus users are documented and merged with the physical analysis of the working and leisure spaces. Discussing those examples in socio-spatial details underlines the transformation and dissolution of campus idea in urban life and exposes the unique experience of campus spaces of & Idot;zmir.