Lost Highways. Sinan’s Architectural and Urban Transformations in Thrace as Traces of the Ottoman Civilization and as Possible Cultural Landscape for the Future

Abstract

The paper is about the traces left by architect Sinan’s Works in Thrace during the 16th Century, in order to define a sort of ‘Ottoman Landscape’ that needs to be preserved and valorized. The memories of the transformations in those territories, characterized by networks of roads and complexes have been obliterated by the making of modern Turkey. Despite many architectural elements, buildings, infrastructures and landmarks are still visible in the region, there is a lack of information and loss of collective memory to identify and recognize these important artifacts as a unique system that once grounded the connective spine of all the Ottoman Empire. The Imperial roads that connected the great Ottoman Empire to the Western states are now abandoned or their traces are lost, although the potential impact when placed in an appropriate framework and considering the common past shared in those geographies between Europe and Turkey, could be used as an incentive to reconnect a common cultural and even physical environment.