The Republic of Türkiye inherited one of the world’s richest architectural landscapes, including Byzantine churches, Seljuk caravanserais and Ottoman palaces. It also inherited the legacy of wars, displacement, fires, earthquakes and decades of economic hardship, leaving many of those monuments in need of urgent protection and restoration.
From the 1950s onwards, rapid urbanisation transformed cities such as Istanbul. Informal housing, expanding road networks and reinforced concrete development placed mounting pressure on historic neighbourhoods, threatening the integrity of the nation’s cultural fabric. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, born in Istanbul in 1954, witnessed these changes firsthand before becoming the city’s metropolitan mayor in 1994.
After founding the AK Party on August 14, 2001, and coming to power the following year, his governments increasingly placed the restoration and adaptive reuse of historical sites at the centre of Türkiye’s cultural heritage policy. President Erdogan has repeatedly linked that vision to his own relationship with Istanbul. Speaking in 2025, he described serving the city first as mayor and later as prime minister and president, highlighting the reopening of Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque and the restoration of Rami Barracks among the projects through which he hoped to leave a lasting legacy.
As the AK Party marks its 25th anniversary, restoration, archaeology and adaptive reuse have become defining features of its approach to cultural heritage. Officials say that approach has also evolved significantly over the past two decades. “It has evolved from one focused solely on physical repair towards a holistic model that combines scientific documentation, the protection of original values, sustainability, a balance between conservation and use, and bringing cultural assets together with society,” says Serdar Cam, deputy minister of Culture and Tourism.
Cam says the shift has meant preserving a building’s original function where possible and giving it an appropriate new use when necessary. Conservation, he adds, now extends beyond restoring physical structures to include documentation, maintenance, visitor infrastructure and long-term management. The most prominent example in Cam’s account is Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque. Since reopening for worship on July 24, 2020, it has remained accessible to both worshippers and visitors while conservation and structural reinforcement work continues under the supervision of a scientific committee.
The results are perhaps most visible beneath modern-day Istanbul. “The archaeological excavations carried out at Yenikapi, Sirkeci, Cagaloglu, Uskudar and Kadikoy areas in Istanbul produced finds of exceptional importance not only for Istanbul’s history, but for world history,” Hayri Fehmi Yilmaz, an art historian, tells.
Cam says the restoration effort extends well beyond individual monuments. Rather than focusing on a handful of landmark sites, the government has pursued a broader strategy of urban regeneration. In Istanbul alone, he points to projects including Rami Barracks, the Maiden’s Tower, Galata Tower and the former Defter-i Hakani Nezareti building, alongside restoration work at the Sehzadebasi Tombs, Hatice Turhan Valide Sultan tomb and others.
The sites preserve the memory of key figures from the Ottoman dynasty: Hatice Turhan Valide Sultan was the mother of Sultan Mehmed IV and one of the empire’s influential queen mothers; Mustafa III, Selim III and Mahmud II were Ottoman sultans, while the complex contains tombs associated with members of the imperial family. These sites serve as critical touchstones for the city’s historical identity.
Beyond the city, the programme has included conservation work at the ancient city of Ani, Edirne’s Hidirlik Bastion, the Girls’ Monastery in Trabzon and Alanya Castle, while also expanding to industrial heritage through projects such as the former Adana Mensucat factory. Together, these projects reflect a conservation strategy that spans centuries of history and a wide range of architectural traditions, rather than concentrating on a single era or building type.
Speaking at the reopening of Yildiz Palace in July 2024, President Erdogan said around 6,000 foundation-owned cultural properties had been restored or repaired since 2002, while more than 120 restoration projects had also been completed abroad through TIKA, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency. After a six-year restoration, Erdogan said the objective was not only to restore its walls, gardens and interiors, but also to return one of Istanbul’s “places of memory” to public life by reopening long-inaccessible buildings as a museum for future generations.
“Each of these projects is also an instrument of diplomacy and prestige that introduces Türkiye’s cultural richness to the world,” Cam says, echoing a view frequently expressed by Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy. He points to Mor Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Church, inaugurated in Istanbul in 2023, as an example of that approach. President Erdogan attended the laying of its foundation stone in 2019 and later described the project as part of broader reforms concerning religious freedom and community foundations. He said 1,084 properties, including 113 belonging to the Syriac community, had been registered in the names of minority community foundations, while 20 minority places of worship had been restored and reopened.
Under the Legacy to the Future initiative, the ministry is expanding visitor infrastructure at archaeological sites through projects including a new visitor reception centre and theatre restoration at Ephesus, conservation and environmental works at Pergamon’s Asklepion and the restoration of the ancient theatre at Laodicea. “Ancient places that reach the present through meticulous restoration are schools that carry the wisdom of the past into today,” Huseyin Ozer, a primary school teacher, tells, reflecting the government’s aim to integrate these sites into the daily lives of citizens.
Speaking at an international archaeology symposium in Ankara in August 2025, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Anatolia as a place where beliefs, cultures, languages and civilisations had intertwined over millenni
“It is of utmost importance to unearth, document, attentively protect and leave this treasure to next generations,” he said.
His administration, he said, has sought to build on that legacy by expanding resources devoted to archaeology.
Speaking at an international archaeology symposium in Ankara in August 2025, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Anatolia as a place where beliefs, cultures, languages and civilisations had intertwined over millennia, shaping humanity’s shared memory.
At Yenikapi, the site of a major archaeological excavation uncovered during construction of Istanbul’s Marmaray rail project, he says excavations pushed back the city’s known history to the Neolithic era and revealed rare evidence of everyday life from the Byzantine and Ottoman periods.
Thousands of artefacts recovered from the site have since been conserved and added to museum collections across Türkiye.
According to Cam, archaeological work grew from 227 sites in 58 provinces in 2024 to 255 sites across 65 provinces in 2025, employing more than 2,000 archaeologists and art historians, along with more than 3,000 other workers.
Cam says the same conservation philosophy has been applied across projects of very different periods and purposes.
President Erdogan inaugurated Rami Library in January 2023 and said in 2025 that it had welcomed seven million visitors in its first two and a half years.
The project has also received international recognition.
In August 2026, Rami Library won the grand-scale category at the IFLA Green Library Awards after its transformation from a former military barracks into what organisers described as a climate-resilient urban commons.
Architect Sinan Genim believes the period has also seen stronger institutional support for heritage conservation.
Susin says the church has been warmly received not only by Syriacs in Türkiye and abroad, but also by other Christian and Muslim communities.
For educators, those investments also help bring history closer to younger generations.
Source: TRT World
