ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the making of a new national architecture under the Justice and Development Party, which culminated in the Presidential Compound. Nation-building processes often involve state-led undertakings in shaping the built environment to achieve nationalist representations. The ambition to build public buildings to stand for centuries would inevitably give way to the constraints of economy and the schools would continue to be built with reinforced concrete systems. While the post-Soviet Turkic states looked up to the Turkish example in the utilization of capital city development for nation-building, the Islamists saw in them something beyond the Turkish establishment's interest in expanding its sphere of influence. The "new city" that would rise on the southern plains would house government buildings and residences for state employees. The core of the complex is a U-shaped administrative cluster composed of a main building facing the entrance and two longer wings extending 200 meters in the opposite direction.
