Stone masonry walls and woodworks as architectural heritages in rural areas of the Eastern Anatolia Region, Turkey: case studies from Erzurum, Kars and Ardahan

The land of Turkey has hosted various civilizations throughout history, and it has diverse architectural heritages left from these civilizations. Rural areas and settlements can be seen as the pure reflection of geographical and cultural environment as well as historical and economical. However, today as a consequence of modernisation, the traditional architectural pattern in the rural settlements of Turkey faces the danger of uniformity. There is little interest in documenting and maintaining the civilian architectural heritages in rural settlements. To this end, this research aims to investigate how the construction practice has changed, and affected the continuity of traditional civilian architectural heritages in rural settlements of Turkey. This paper presents direct observations of the researcher from the region selected.