Power and Visual Integration A Comparative Study On The Relationship Between The Emergence of Political Power and The Spatial Configurations of Party Headquarters’

A large proportion of the arguments on politics are based on political parties’ ideologies. These assumptions are solely dependent on the parties’ statements concerning how the party identity is presented (party constitutions, press briefs, speeches of the party chairperson, etc.). Even though these statements might be considered somewhat informative, they are not the only sources of information for power practices. This research investigates the relation between power and space to reveal implicit power practices via analyzing four political party headquarters in Ankara, Turkey using isovist area, isovist perimeter, drift, connectivity, mean depth, integration, and intelligibility values of where authority and visitors occupy by Syntax 2D software. “To see” a wide range of areas in space and “to be seen” from anywhere in the space are important factors of being impotent or competent. Therefore, isovist-based syntax analysis (the area and perimeter of the isovist), and connectivity, mean depth, integration, and intelligibility values to understand the amount of control that the user is exposed to are analyzed. Especially drift value becomes an important tool because it is convenient for understanding central locations of the space which serves the purpose of “to be seen” and peripheries where the user has holistic perception, and thus the ability “to see”. Findings show that The Motherland Party (MP) and The Justice and Development Party (JDP) headquarters share the same characteristics that the visitors of the space are located in more controlled locations compared to the protocol members. They are more oppressed and under surveillance. However, the magnitude of this attitude is much higher at JDP headquarters. It is understandable since both parties are branched from the same ideological origin. The Nationalist Movement Party (NMP) headquarters shows exact opposite characteristics, and for The Republican Peoples’ Party (RPP) headquarters, there were no significant calculations differentiation for the function groups.