A Ship Sailing East with Its Voyagers Travelling West.

During the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was trying to locate itself culturally within the frame of the post-Enlightenment European policies. Ethnocultural factors led to political changes in the territorial structure of the Empire. In this era, the Ottoman Empire created a promising milieu for the introduction of grandiose design projects, and such buildings formed part of a modernization process, which defined a new relationship to Europe. This article investigates the bipolarity of the architectural design discourse between the existing traditions and the new approaches introduced by this modernization process, including its consequences into the post-Empire period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]