“Forms of Belonging: Armenian Architects, Vernacular Style and Architectural Placemaking in the Ottoman East” published

2026-02-16 - 21:26

LONDON/NEW YORK — I. B. Tauris, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, has announced the publication of Dr. Alyson Wharton-Durgaryan’s Forms of Belonging: Armenian Architects, Vernacular Style and Architectural Placemaking in the Ottoman East. The book is part of the series Armenians in the Modern and Early Modern World edited by Bedross Der Matossian (University of Nebraska, Lincoln). Contrary to the historical record, which views the architecture of the eastern Ottoman cities as unchanging remnants of a medieval and proto-Turkish golden age, this richly illustrated book highlights the wide-ranging transformations that Mardin, Diyarbakir, Urfa, Antep, Bitlis and Erzurum, saw at the hands of Armenian architects of the 19th and 20th centuries. Case studies reflect the agency of Armenian architects in constructing these buildings — whether churches, mansions, government offices, schools or commercial structures. Each chapter focuses on one of these cities and on Armenians’ participation in shaping these places, not just through architecture but also through city institutions, patronage and benevolence. It argues that Armenians used the urban environment and a uniquely Armenian reinvention of vernacular architecture, which reflected their religious, educational, intellectual and political networks, to help revive these cities in an era marked by reforms to the Ottoman polity, political culture and local governance. This was a show of popular belonging and pride in local traditions, but it was also marked by symbols of Ottoman authority, reflecting the formation of Ottoman local elites that included these Armenians, and thus representing complex localization and Ottomanization processes at work. This book shows that there was not ‘one’ Armenian culture or identity, but many competing visions across Ottoman cities. Wharton-Durgaryan commented on the book, saying, “Forms of Belonging dates back to my time living and working in Mardin, where I spent several years from 2012. The book’s significance lays in the combination of approaches to the Armenian architecture of the Ottoman eastern provinces — meaning not only Armenian communal buildings but also State buildings and Islamic architecture built by Armenians — that endeavors to understand this architecture not from the perspective of the state, but to appreciate it through a local lens, through local memories, local circulation of decorative motifs and also through the regional, transregional, transimperial and cross-border networks that connected these localities in the late 19th century.” According to her, the book argues that Armenians negotiated a host of different scenarios in the six cities that are studied in each chapter: from the prevalence of conversion in Mardin, to mercantile and missionary mobility in Antep, to competitions about sanctity in Urfa, to urban fragmentation in Diyarbakir, to post-massacre rebuilding in Bitlis, to the tensions brought by the revolutionaries in Erzurum. The architecture that was constructed in these places, in these scenarios, shows the different visual expressions of belonging in these fraught conditions — and the remarkable lengths to which Armenians went to show their belonging at a time of impending erasure. “Forms of Belonging reconsiders the architecture of the eastern Ottoman Empire, showing how Armenian architects transformed cities such as Mardin, Diyarbakir, Urfa, Antep, Bitlis and Erzurum in the 19th and early 20th centuries,” said Der Matossian, editor of the series. “Through vivid case studies, it reveals how Armenians shaped not only churches but also state and Islamic buildings, expressing layered forms of local and imperial belonging. Challenging the notion of a single Armenian identity, the book highlights diverse strategies of presence, participation and resilience in an era of reform and upheaval,” he continued. Reviews “An admirable and innovative study that opens new perspective on the history of Ottoman architecture and its culture. By focusing on the contribution of Armenians to the religious as well as secular architecture of East Anatolia, a region with multiple ethnicities and faiths and remote from the centre of power, the book reveals multi-layered aspects of artistic and cultural interaction. It is a pioneer work and as, the author herself says, this book is just the beginning of a field that is ripe for further investigations.” — Doris Behrens-Abouseif, professor at SOAS, UK “This book makes a bold and timely case for recognizing Armenian architecture as central to the remaking of the Ottoman East. Rather than merely documenting lost heritage, it argues that distinctive Armenian architectural forms emerged from the lived experiences of Armenians in cities like Mardin, Antep, Urfa, Diyarbakir, Bitlis and Erzurum. Drawing on architectural analysis, archival sources and memory books, it reveals how Armenians navigated belonging and visibility within a changing imperial landscape. This is a landmark contribution to the urban history of the Islamic world and a deeply significant intervention in understanding Armenian presence, creativity and resilience amid marginalization and erasure in the Ottoman empire.” — Mohammad Gharipour, professor at the University of Maryland, U.S. Alyson Wharton-Durgaryan Alyson Wharton-Durgaryan is an art and architectural historian. From 2015 to 2025, she was a lecturer and senior lecturer at the University of Lincoln (UK), where she remains an honorary senior fellow. She has published widely on Armenian architects, including the book Architects of Ottoman Constantinople: The Balyan Family and the History of Ottoman Architecture (IB Tauris, 2015). She has also worked with Armenian antiquities dealers, organizing the conference in October 2025, “Artistic Networks of Trust: Collecting and Dealing through War and Diplomacy,” at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. She will shortly take up a two-year research fellowship at the University of Oxford. Copies of Forms of Belonging: Armenian Architects, Vernacular Style and Architectural Placemaking in the Ottoman East are available for purchase from the Bloomsbury Press website. Enter code ARMENIA at checkout on bloomsbury.com for 25% off.