A Sub-utopian Landscape from the 20th Century: A Comparative and Critical Analysis of the Forest Farm ‘Dream’ of Ataturk.

Even though the 20th century architecture and urbanism have been very frequently visited for utopias, utopian landscapes in specific have remained underdiscussed. The histories and narratives of landscapes, however, can never be fully isolated from those of utopian thought. This work dwells on various modes of 20th century landscape utopianisms through a comparative and critical reading of Ataturk Forest Farm, in Ankara. Ataturk Forest Farm is one of the most significant spatial projects which had been realized upon the constitution of the Republic of Turkey by Ataturk. It visits The Farm (AOÇ) as a miniature model of the ideal new state. To this end, what is proposed is an alternative reading of AOÇ as the medium through which the ideal new life was conceived and manifested. This, therefore, is not a concurrent reading of the histories of Ankara and AOÇ but rather an exclusive, comparative and critical analysis of how this landscape project recaptured the relationship between environment and (the urban) man that is the ideal citizen of the new state – how it implied a radically new lifestyle for the citizens of the new Republic and succeeded in becoming the perfect program to affirm that a radically new way of living was possible