BIOGRAPHY
Belgin Turan Özkaya is a Professor in the Department of Architecture and the Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Architectural History. She obtained her B.Arch. and M.Sc. in Restoration from METU and a PhD in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University. Professor Turan Özkaya is a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century architecture and material culture, with a particular focus on the Ottoman and British Empires. She is also interested in the changing perceptions of antiquity and cultural heritage during the nineteenth century. Her notable publications include edited volumes and special issues such as Rethinking Architectural Historiography (Taylor & Francis, 2006), which was longlisted for the RIBA Sir Nikolaus Pevsner International Book Award for Architecture, “Spaces of Vision: Architecture and Visuality in the Modern Era” (Architectural Theory Review, 2007), “Transpositions on the Edge of Europe: Ambivalence and Difference in Architecture” (Journal of Architecture, 2011), “Ambivalent Architectures from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic” (New Perspectives on Turkey, 2014), and a special collection on "Travel" (Architectural Histories, 2016). She served as co-director of the British Academy project "Ambivalent Geographies," which examined West Asia as a zone of influence for the Ottoman and British Empires. Her research has been supported by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Koç University ANAMED, Getty Research Institute, and Harvard University's AKPIA. Currently, Professor Turan Özkaya is completing her monograph titled Itinerant Objects: The British Museum and the Ottoman Response to Antiquity. She is also a research affiliate for the project "Historical Architecture in Disaster Zones: Digital Documentation, Archiving, and Preservation" at Stanford University. The volume she co-edited with Sibel Zandi-Sayek, Ottoman Mobilities in the Global Nineteenth Century is set to be published in April 2026 by De Gruyter. Professor Turan Özkaya served on the editorial boards of Architectural Histories (2011-2017) and the International Journal of Islamic Architecture (2021-2023). In 2021, she co-organized the European Architectural History Network thematic conference "Architecture and Endurance" in Ankara.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Turan Özkaya, B. and Zandi-Sayek, S. 2026. (eds.). Ottoman Mobilities in the Global Nineteenth Century, Berlin: De Gruyter. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/isbn/9783111548746/html
Turan Özkaya, B. 2026. Competing Visions, Indigenous Practices: Travelers and the Locals in Nineteenth-century Lycia and Pamphylia. In Indigenous Archaeologies, Vernacular Classicisms. edited by Nikolaos Magouliotis. Special issue, Architectural Histories: The Open Access Journal of the EAHN.
Turan Özkaya, B. 2025. Review of The Accidental Palace: The Making of Yıldız in Nineteenth-Century Istanbul by Deniz Türker (2023). International Journal of Islamic Architecture 14 (2): 405-407, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/ijia_00181_5
Turan Özkaya, B. 2023. Immobile Travels. Platform: A digital forum for conversations about buildings, spaces, and landscapes. 8 May 2023. Available at https://www.platformspace.net/home/immobile-travels
Turan Özkaya, B. 2022. Entangled Geographies, Contested Narratives: The Canning Marbles and the Ottoman Response to Antiquity. Muqarnas 39 (1): 227-254, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391P10
Turan Özkaya, B. 2022. Hagia Sophia and the Crisis of Cultural Heritage. Aesthetics for Birds.13 January 2022. Available at https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2022/01/13/hagia-sophia-and-cultural-heri...