User:Central Data Bank/Second national architectural movement

The Second national architectural movement (Turkish: İkinci ulusal mimarlık akımı), also known in Turkey as Turkish New Regionalism, was a period of Turkish architecture most prevalent in the 1940s. The movement was heavily inspired by the totalitarian architecture of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Stalinist Soviet Union and sought to combine it with Ottoman and Seljuk architectural features. The pioneers of the movement were Sedat Hakkı Eldem and Emin Onat.

History

Two major events are widely considered to have kick-started the movement: the death of Turkey's first President, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in 1938, and the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Atatürk championed the First national architectural movement (1908-1930) in the 1920s but also hired numerous foreign architects to design many state buildings in the 1930s. Just as the influence of western architecture saw a counter-movement focusing on Turkish architecture in the early 20th century, the abundance of foreign architects in the 1930s led to a second counter-movement by Turkish architects.