According to Turkish media, members of parliament from the ruling Justice and Development Party have come forward with an initiative to repeal the famous 1927 law prohibiting the use of coats of arms, seals and tughras dating back to the Ottoman Empire in the design of municipal and private buildings. It is known that if the bill is adopted, its implementation will be handled by a special commission created under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey.
Let us recall that the 1927 law, which came into force just four years after the establishment of the Turkish Republic, decreed that traditional decorative elements with inscriptions in Old Ottoman and Arabic languages be removed from the facades of buildings. If the overly massive stucco coats of arms and plaques could not be removed without damaging the integrity of the facade, they were to be covered with marble slabs.
It should be noted that, despite the fact that the bill has not yet been reviewed, there are already the first precedents in Turkey for the return of Ottoman symbols to architectural elements. Thus, in April 2014, Istanbul University again erected the tughra of the Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz on the campus gates, which had been absent there for 87 years.
