Secil Binboga

Binboga is a Ph.D candidate in the Architectural History and Theory Program. She holds a B.Arch and an M.Arch from the Middle East Technical University. Her research interests center on the relationship between Cold War development projects and transformation of landscapes and waterscapes with a geographical focus on the making of the Middle East. In her dissertation project, she aims to assemble a spatial history of modern Turkey by looking at three key development projects, conducted by the IBRD and FAO, under the auspices of the U.S. Mission in Turkey: a soil survey map, a hydro-engineering project, and a port reconstruction plan. Her research focuses on cultural and ecological landscapes of an eastern Mediterranean setting, known as “Çukurova” (ancient Cilicia), in an effort to trace the ideological and economic dynamics that accompanied Turkey’s assimilation into both the “new Middle East” and the American sphere of influence. Exploring a large corpus of textual and visual documents, including governmental correspondence, maps, photographs, feasibility/construction reports, and urbanization surveys at archives in both Turkey and the U.S., Binboga aims to show how such practices like mapping, surveying, and infrastructural design fundamentally altered human-environment relations, and re-shaped the meaning of nature and space.