Humanities and Social Sciences Review, CD-ROM. ISSN: 2165-6258 :: 05(03):493–504 (2016) AN ARCHITECTURAL EXAMINATION OF EARLY BANK BUILDINGS IN TURKEY Duygu Saban Ökesli, Rukiye Tüter and Nur Ylmaz Çukurova University, Turkey The emergence of modern banking practice in the 17th century generated a new type of building for banks especially in Europe, and starting with the first half of the 19th century several bank branches throughout the world have been built. This paper focusing on the early examples of bank buildings in Turkey, examines the architectural characteristics of the first bank buildings that were designed by the Italian architect Giulio Mongeri, in order to understand design criteria of the buildings and define whether they represented European approach of bank architecture. Giulio Mongeri was the leader of the First National Movement in Turkey and the bank buildings examined for this paper are the finest examples. The examination of Mongeri's bank buildings revealed that the buildings were designed according to the functional needs and the spatial organization had similarities representing contemporary requirements, although façades were heavily ornamented in a way that was unique to nationalist architecture in Turkey. As a result of the examination it can be suggested that while bank branches throughout the world have common architectural characteristics and that they were adopted by Giulio Mongeri in early Turkish examples, local and traditional features were also added to represent the period they were built. Keywords: Turkey, Ankara, Bank buildings, Architecture, Giulio Mongeri. Introduction Banking activities going back to 2 nd Millennium B.C. in Babylonia and ancient Egypt were stemmed from the requirement that grain harvests be stored in centralized state warehouses and soon private banks dealing in coinage and precious metals were established (Davies, 1994). During the medieval period in Italy, the Medici bank set up by Giovanni Medici in 1397 was so successful that the scope of the business had expanded throughout Europe and branches of the Medici Bank were established as far as London (Goldthwaite, 1995). Banks have become an integral part of the economy in Europe since 17 th Century (Davies, 1994) and in the United States of America by 18 th Century (Klebaner, 1974). The modern banking system has been originated in the 19 th century as a result of industrialization and the need of capital which could no longer be met by individual financiers. In terms of architectural design of the early 19 th century bank buildings, they were based on historicist styles, mostly ancient Greek, with their balance and symmetry (Figure 1) and were rich in ornamentation aiming to convince customers of their reliability (Vandeweghe, 2013). In the second half of the 19 th century however, the neo-classical architecture of bank buildings was abandoned and buildings were designed like Italian Renaissance palaces (Figure 2) to symbolize stability and continuity of financial institutions (Vandeweghe, 2013). 493