In the late 1960s, Amelie Edgü bought a house in the southwestern holiday resort town of Bodrum. Following the purchase, she had a chance to visit the many villages and historic ruins surrounding Bodrum and Milas Edgü, the curator of the İstanbul-based Milli Reasürans Art Gallery, had realized back then that the region’s ancient architecture and ornamentation.

On the modern buildings in neighboring villages were very special and deserved a special project that would show them to the world. As soon as she observed the area, she knew that a project on the region -- known as Labraunda during ancient times -- would be very special and could reveal the ongoing effects of the region’s history.

“Whenever my daughter’s friends visit us in Bodrum, I always take them to Labraunda. I almost know every stone and tree there,” Edgü says in an interview with Today’s Zaman. After many years of visits, her observations and research have culminated in an exhibition titled “Mylasa Labraunda/Milas Çomakdağ -- Archaeology and Rural Architecture in the Southern Aegean Region,” which is currently on display at the Milli Reasürans Gallery. The exhibition is also accompanied by a comprehensive book that details the architecture of the region through photographs.

With its geography, natural beauty and a history that is known to stretch back to the oldest cultures in Anatolia, Labraunda has affected the neighboring villages, Edgü explains. “It shaped lives, villages and histories. Our task was to realize, research and trace this life. The project aims to document and demonstrate the natural environment together with the qualities of the cultural elements and their connected meaning,” Edgü says.

She says their objective is to present the wealth of this area through various projects. “We want this richness to be preserved and not to turn into just slabs of concrete,” she stresses.

The study, which constitutes the third part of the ongoing “Urban and Rural Architecture in Turkey” project, features a presentation of the archaeology and architecture of the region. “The Swedish Consulate supports a project with Turkey every year. They chose our project in 2007-2008,” Edgü notes. “The Labraunda ruins were excavated by Professor A.W. Persson from Sweden’s Uppsala University in 1948. The excavations conducted by the Swedish archeologists have continued periodically since then,” she says. In 2001 the excavations were started again by Professor Lars Karlsson under the supervision of Professor P. Helsström.

The project also delves into the historical and social facets of the region. “The history of Labraunda includes the Caria, Roman and Byzantine periods. The Swedish team was limiting their studies to the Byzantine period. Nevertheless, life is going on in Labraunda; neighboring villagers use it as a summer residence and named it ‘Kocayayla.’ Furthermore, villages in the neighboring region of Çomakdağ have very authentic characteristics. Especially in terms of rural architecture, the unique houses and decorations that are done with the wall technique in Labraunda cannot be compared to the houses even in Milas. This culture does not come from outside. It can be observed in the whole mountainous areas from Bafa to Çine. However, Çomakdağ is very distinctive among the others, although it shares the main qualities with the rest,” she says, adding that through this project they wanted to highlight this continuity in the region. “This concept is also embraced by Professor Karlsson. This way, we had the chance of analyzing the two periods within one book and exhibition,” Edgü adds.

Field research for the study was carried out over the past two years. It was conducted by Edgü, and photographs were taken by Ali Konyalı, who also photographed the previous two projects: “Rural Architecture in the Eastern Black Sea Region” and “Architecture in Northeastern Anatolia.” “Ali Konyalı is the indispensable name of these projects. He not only took the photographs but also contributed to the book in the graphic design stages. He is someone who can come up with highly creative ideas,” explains the curator.

Other contributors to the book were scientific consultant Professor Afife Batur and editors Murat Ural and Figen Kuzucu, both of whom worked on the previous projects. “Following our own research, we came together with the Swedish team. The current supervisor of the excavations, Lars Karlsson, and Swedish archaeologist Jesper Blid, French archaeologist Olivier Henry and Turkish researcher Dr. Abdülkadir Baran from Muğla University wrote articles about the subjects they were interested in. Batur and Ural also wrote detailed analyses about the Milas Çomakdağ villages,” the curator says, stressing that the photographs were taken according to the articles, and thus there is a unity between the texts and the visual images.

The Milli Reasürans Gallery is also currently preparing another book and exhibition that will focus on the architecture in the southeastern city of Mardin under the same project. The “Mylasa Labraunda” exhibition can be viewed until Feb. 27 at the gallery in İstanbul’s Teşvikiye neighborhood.