Back to the Future with Ernst Reuter: Untaken Urbanization Lessons of Turkey in 1940s

The years of the Second World War was a drastic destruction period. In the 1940’s the cities of the modern world were not the fields of construction, but the fields of destruction. In that period as a newly founded republic, Turkey was a real exception between those lines of fire. Despite the diffuculties, Ankara, the new capital was growing under the light of a modern plan; public service buildings, factories were designating the new city cores in Anatolia.Urban policies for the future was a hot and gripping discussion field in all respects. At that point, after Ernst Reuter came to Turkey in such an atmosphere, he would help to found the Republic’s modern urbanism discipline. So this study aims to explore Ernst Reuter’s contributions to Turkish urbanism in 1940s, his suggestions towards the future and current situation of Turkish urbanism with a comparative approach after 72 years of his work in Turkey.