Population Exchange Heritage as a Multi-Layered Cultural Process: Exploring Continuity and Transformation in Traditional Tirilye Houses in Bursa, Türkiye

This paper examines the impact of the 1923 Turkish–Greek Population Exchange on the urban and architectural heritage of Tirilye, a historic coastal settlement in Bursa, Türkiye. The study addresses how migration-related transformations shaped both the tangible and intangible dimensions of heritage, focusing particularly on traditional houses and their adaptive reuse strategies. The research aims to identify patterns of continuity and transformation in residential architecture and to interpret population exchange heritage as a multi-layered cultural process. The study adopts a qualitative multi-method approach combining literature review, archival research, field surveys, architectural and typological analyses, and oral history interviews. The monuments and twenty-eight traditional houses were comparatively analysed at urban and building scales in terms of plan organisation, façade typology, construction techniques, and functional transformation. The findings demonstrate that Tirilye largely preserved its historic urban fabric despite demographic rupture. Traditional houses retained many original spatial and architectural characteristics while adapting to new social and economic conditions. The study reveals a hybrid architectural nature combining the effects of various living traditions and highlights the continuity of production-related spaces associated with olive cultivation and sericulture. The paper proposes understanding population exchange heritage as a dynamic process shaped by continuity, adaptation, reuse, and collective memory.