Protecting historical cultural heritage has been one of the issues that has attracted social, technical and intellectual interest for a long time on an international scale and since recent times. The multidimensionality and versatility of the subject requires the unity and cooperation of various study disciplines. This subject emerges as a meeting point of various fields of architecture and engineering, with socially weighted subjects such as society and art history, as well as artistic creativity-related subjects such as building character and aesthetics. It is known that civil engineering has a very important place in this regard, both from the perspective of materials and construction techniques and their related project design and dimensioning techniques, as well as within the framework of building foundations and ground connections.
However, it is also a fact that, within the series of activities to be carried out for the repair and overhaul of buildings with historical cultural heritage value and to create a new life texture within today’s activities without damaging their historical character, the studies related to civil engineering are not sufficiently understood in our country and are not sufficiently adopted in our technical world. We are pleased that the Chamber of Civil Engineers is taking serious action to eliminate this deficiency in the process of understanding and implementation. Organizing symposiums with wide participation that will create a comprehensive scientific framework for this activity is among the meaningful examples of these studies. The three-day national symposiums organized by TMMOB Chamber of Civil Engineers, the first in Ankara in 2007 and the second in Diyarbakır with a broader scope and international participation, are horizon-opening in this sense. The diversity and scope of the responsibility of civil engineering in the restoration, renewal and strengthening of historical monuments, carried out within the understanding of architecture advocating classical restoration techniques, has become clearer with the technical and scientific explanations of the scientists and experts who participated in this symposium.
The Symposium, which was held in Diyarbakır as a joint event of IMO Ankara and Diyarbakır Branches on 15-17 October 2009, showed itself as a successful event within the framework of this understanding. Although some of the papers sent to the meeting were not accepted due to insufficient abstract texts, a total of 68 papers were accepted (7 invited, 3 with promotional matches, 58 presentations). Although some of the accepted papers did not come to present within the symposium program, a total of 56 papers were still presented. After the first special guest presentations of the opening day, parallel presentations of papers took place in two halls, and it was observed with pleasure that the 56 paper presentations in question were carried out in a desired meeting discipline, except for a very small time shift glitch specific to the last day. Scientific and intellectual activities in answering questions and comments regarding the presentations also played a role in evaluating the symposium as a successful activity.
By combining parallel presentations in two separate halls in a single venue during the course of the symposium, it was possible to comprehensively discuss the perspectives of public institutions closely related to this issue in our country and the problems they face. In addition to academic relations on this subject, Erhan Karaesmen, with his knowledge from his experience as a senior manager in public institutions and extensive international connections, provided effective guidance in this special comprehensive session, as well as his guiding contributions to the general conduct of the symposium. Apart from the authorized and relevant technical staff of public institutions, it was possible to express the thoughts and suggestions of many academic institutions and private sector institutions’ employees who followed the symposium regarding the functioning of public relevant units on this subject. The Chamber of Civil Engineers is also proud to have organized a mutual exchange of views and suggestions in this sense and scope.
The majority of those who attended the symposium by presenting papers or as listeners, hope that architecture, restoration, art history, sociology, material science and other disciplines of earth sciences, which are stakeholders in the protection of cultural heritage, will gather with great interest and belief under the umbrella of this symposium organized by the Chamber of Civil Engineering in the future. It is also a pleasing development that it signals that the Civil Engineering discipline will become even more guiding in this field.
The evaluation meeting of the last session of the symposium, held with the participation of experienced and knowledgeable experts on the subject, also had a special meaning. Suggestions and inspiration were received from this session to shed light on corporate events to be held on this subject, including symposiums.
The symposium proceedings have been presented to the attention of our technical world as a comprehensive text as an IMO publication. However, unfortunately, it was noted that there were some authors whose papers were published but who did not attend the meeting without giving an excuse or providing information. It becomes clear that this issue will need to be paid attention to in future symposiums and that we will need to be more careful about contributing only by sending papers without physically participating in the symposium.
It is clear that it would be very useful to carry out the area of interest created by the Chamber of Civil Engineers in this field through symposiums, training seminars, various other meetings and related or direct publications.
This sensitive behavior of the Chamber of Civil Engineers in protecting historical heritage has been appreciated by other professional disciplines and public employees, and it has been adopted that contributing to this activity of IMO will be followed and paid more attention in terms of professional disciplines and the public.