Zulal SemaThe Republic of Türkiye inherited one of the world's richest architectural landscapes, including Byzantine churches, Seljuk caravanserais, Ottoman palaces, mosques, synagogues, monasteries, and early Republican civic buildings.
It also inherited the legacy of wars, displacement, fires, earthquakes and decades of economic hardship, leaving many of those monuments in need of 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.
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 mark on the city.
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," Serdar Cam, deputy minister of Culture and Tourism, tells TRT World.
Cam says the shift has meant preserving a building's original function where possible and giving it an appropriate new use where necessary.
Conservation, he adds, now extends beyond restoring physical structures to include documentation, maintenance, visitor planning, environmental design and public access.
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.
Cam says the restoration effort extends well beyond individual monuments. Rather than focusing on a handful of landmark sites, it spans religious, civic, military and industrial heritage across Türkiye.
In Istanbul alone, he points to projects including Rami Barracks, the Maiden's Tower, Galata Tower and the former Defter-i Hakani Nezareti (Ministry of the Imperial Land Registry) building, alongside restoration work at the Sehzadebasi Tombs, Hatice Turhan Valide Sultan's Tomb, the tombs of Mustafa III and Selim III, and the tomb of Mahmud II.
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 Sehzadebasi III and Mahmud II were Ottoman sultans, while the complex contains tombs associated with members of the imperial family.
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 (yarn) 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, Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency.
The reopening of Yildiz Palace was among the most symbolic of those projects. 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.
Common memory
For the government, preserving Türkiye's cultural heritage extends beyond restoring standing monuments to uncovering the civilisations that came before them.
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.
"It is of utmost importance to unearth, document, attentively protect and leave this treasure to next generations," he said.
President Erdogan also acknowledged that archaeological preservation did not begin with his government, tracing its roots to late Ottoman heritage laws and museums, as well as to excavations, university departments, and cultural institutions established in the early years of the Republic.
His administration, he said, has sought to build on that legacy by expanding resources devoted to archaeology.
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 TRT World.
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.
Deputy Minister Serdar Cam says that expansion has accelerated under the Legacy to the Future initiative, launched in October 2023 by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism under Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy.
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.
At Ani and Sumela Monastery, restoration has focused on preserving multi-layered heritage through scientific conservation methods. In Istanbul, work at the Maiden's Tower and Galata Tower has sought to protect two of the city's most recognisable landmarks while maintaining their historical character.
Rami Barracks perhaps best illustrates the government's emphasis on adaptive reuse. Rather than preserving the 19th-century military complex as a static monument, it was transformed into a public library offering educational, cultural and arts programmes while retaining the building's defining architectural features.
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.
"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.
Architect Sinan Genim believes the period has also seen stronger institutional support for heritage conservation.
"Important restoration work has been carried out across Türkiye, while projects such as Tas Tepeler have changed accepted ideas about archaeology and human history," Genim tells TRT World.
He also points to expanded restoration work at Topkapi Palace and the continuing conservation of Edirne Palace as examples of that broader institutional commitment.
Shared inheritance
For Cam, preserving Türkiye's cultural heritage also means protecting the communities that have shaped it.
He points to Mor Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Church, inaugurated in Istanbul in 2023, as an example of that approach.
The first newly built church opened during the Republic's history, it was built to serve a Syriac community that had long relied on places of worship belonging to other Christian denominations.
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.
"This was truly a historic event for us. It made worship much easier for the whole community, and it also became an important source of prestige for our country," Sait Susin, honorary president of the Istanbul Syriac Orthodox Church Foundation, tells TRT World.
Susin says the church has been warmly received not only by Syriacs in Türkiye and abroad, but also by other Christian and Muslim communities.
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 Red Basilica, and new visitor centres at Hierapolis, Phaselis and Aspendos.
For educators, those investments also help bring history closer to younger generations.
"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 TRT World.
Ozer says taking students to sites such as Rami Library, Hagia Sophia and Yildiz Palace transforms history from an abstract subject into something they can experience firsthand.
