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Article Citation - WoS: 6A Light Bulb in Every House the Istanbul General Electric Factory and American Technology Transfer To Turkey(Johns Hopkins Univ Press, 2022) Tunc, Tanfer Emin; Tunc, GokhanIn 1946, Turkish entrepreneur Vehbi Koc signed an agreement with the U.S. firm General Electric to build and operate its first light bulb factory in the Near/Middle East, in Istanbul. This private joint venture introduced new manufacturing techniques, business practices, and consumer habits to Turkey, opening channels of postwar technological exchange. Closer examination of the GE-Koc partnership reveals that during the early Cold War, the transfer and embedding of American technologies in Turkey was a politically complicated process of innovation that required constant adaptation. Fraught with unforeseeable obstacles, it also required cautious negotiation with multiple transnational actors. The story of the GE-Koc partnership thus adds a new dimension to historical understandings of the Turkish Cold War experience and the Americanization of the region. It illustrates how transferring a nonmilitary, soft-power, domestic technologythe light bulb-played a significant role in Turkish-American relations and therefore contributes to studies of U.S. Cold War diplomacy through transnational investment in innovation.Article Citation - WoS: 1Citation - Scopus: 1Cold War Aviation: American Technology Transfer and the Construction of Turkey's First International Civilian Airport in Yeşilköy, Istanbul, 1944-1953(Cambridge Univ Press, 2024) Tunc, Tanfer Emin; Tunc, GokhanWith the economic and political support of the United States, in July 1947, Turkey signed contracts withthe Westinghouse Electric International Company and J.G. White Engineering Corporation to constructits first international civilian airport, Istanbul'sYe & scedil;ilk & ouml;y Airport. As this article will argue, the buildingof Ye & scedil;ilk & ouml;y (1949-53), through a partnership with two American engineering firms, is essentially anearly Cold War narrative of transnational exchange involving the multidirectional flow of technicalknowledge, expertise and resources between the United States and Turkey; the circulation of geopol-itically significant (and frequently competing) military, civilian and government actors; and thelocal and global implications of these transmissions. Yet the Ye & scedil;ilk & ouml;y construction narrative also illus-trates how post-war technology transfer was a highly political process of constant adaptation, modifi-cation and negotiation. Fraught with unforeseen friction and thorny challenges, Ye & scedil;ilk & ouml;y exemplifiesthe complicated American Cold War strategy of creating and maintaining alliances through engineeringknowledge, personnel and practices, often with unintended consequences. Moreover, as a case study,Ye & scedil;ilk & ouml;y opens a new window into the cautious science diplomacy that occurred along the IronCurtain, while filling a notable historiographic gap with respect to aviation in early Cold War Turkey.Article Citation - WoS: 5Citation - Scopus: 4Engineering the Public-Use Reinforced Concrete Buildings of Ankara During the Early Republic of Turkey, 1923-1938(Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, 2022) Tunc, Gokhan; Tunc, Tanfer EminToday, reinforced concrete (RC) is the most commonly used construction material in Turkey. It first emerged in Europe in the 1850s and was adopted in a number of Late Ottoman period structures, mostly in Istanbul, during the first two decades of the twentieth century. During the Early Turkish Republic (1923-1938), RC appeared in public-use buildings in Ankara, such as the Ethnographic Museum, which was the first in the new capital to feature RC elements, leading the way for many more structures to come. Despite the fact that Turkish and foreign civil engineers faced a series of economic, social, cultural, political, educational and technical challenges during the transition from masonry and timber construction to RC, its adoption was facilitated by the fact that as a European building technology, it became symbolically important to the new republic. Equated with modernity, RC would allow its capital, Ankara, to construct an identity that would contrast with Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. This transition would also be catalyzed by the rise of a professional class of Turkish civil engineers who deployed RC to reinforce their authority as trained specialists and agents of modernization.
