The renewable tradition: Le Corbusier and the East

Extract

This paper considers the problem of tradition in contemporary architectural practice in Turkey as well as in other countries of the world. When it is presented as the display of stylised historical images, tradition loses its relevance in the present and becomes perceived as something that always belongs to the past. In such a case tradition opposes itself against modernity as independent and sovereign. In her writings German-Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt considers the problem of modernity as a problem of tradition which is mainly caused by the polarisation and particularisation between past and future. Addressing her writings, in the architectural realm, tradition becomes past orientated when it is perceived as something completed as appearances. However, perhaps tradition is more future directed and continuously attempts to actualise itself between past and future.