Nevşehir Virgin Mary Church Conservation and Reuse Process

Historical buildings are symbols that reflect the cultural, social and technological characteristics of ancient civilizations, and their preservation and transfer to the future are of great importance to ensure the sustainability of cultural heritage and the continuity of social identity. One of the most preferred methods for the protection of historical buildings that cannot maintain their original function is re-functioning for conservation purposes. This study deals with the conservation and re-functioning process of Nevşehir Virgin Mary Church. The main focus of the study is to document and examine the stages of change, transformation and re-functionalization of the building, which is one of the main elements of the cultural memory of the city, and to evaluate the re-functionalization process in the context of internationally valid conservation principles stipulated by conservation science. In this study, which deals in detail with the history, structural features and periods of different functions of the Redesigned Virgin Mary Church from the perspective of conservation, the functional transformation processes and spatial interventions in the building were evaluated through literature review, archive research and on-site observations. The Church of the Virgin Mary, which has been used with different functions until today, is an important historical building located in the Cumhuriyet district and was built by the Greek community in 1849. It was used as a place of worship for many years, abandoned after the exchange in 1923 and converted into a prison in 1950. During his imprisonment, he underwent major architectural changes, and his original spatial structure and religious details were damaged. The building, which was abandoned after the closure of the prison in 1983, was listed in 2002 and reinstated in 2023. This study, which draws attention to the role of re-functioning in the preservation of historical buildings, aims to make an important contribution to the literature as one of the limited number of studies on the re-functioning of the church.