Say Konya and what comes to mind is Rumi, etli ekmek or the Seljuk madrasas. Yet the imposing building standing in the centre of the city on Mevlana Avenue, immediately east of the Central Bank, is the Konya School of Industry, which holds a very particular place in the history of industrial education in Anatolia. Holding within it more than a century of education, war, culture and industry, the building — used today by the municipal police — keeps its place in Konya's memory as a silent witness to the past.
A School Risen on the Site of a Bedesten
Before 1901 the plot where the Konya School of Industry stands was occupied by the nine-domed Konya Bedesten (the Süleymaniye Bedesten), built in the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. Constructed in 1538 by the military judge Mevlâna Kadri Çelebi, the bedesten fell into disrepair over the centuries and was pulled down in 1901 by decision of the governor of Konya of the day, Avlonyalı Ferit Pasha; in its place rose a school building designed by the provincial chief engineer Şefik Bey. So the building we see on that plot today is not a bedesten that has stood for centuries but a wholly new school, built in its place as a deliberate investment in education — the bedesten was demolished, but the mission of "trade and production" it carried found new life in the school's workshops.
Construction began in 1899 and was completed in September 1901. Rectangular in plan and built of cut stone, with tile ornament on its façade and interiors, the building became a work of art beyond a place of education. Sadly, a significant part of that ornament was destroyed in the great fire of 1979.
The First Schools of Industry in Anatolia After 1868
Under the influence of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, the importance of vocational education grew from the Tanzimat period onwards; in 1868 Mithat Pasha founded the Mekteb-i Sanayi at Sultanahmet in İstanbul. As this initiative spread into Anatolia, the schools of industry opened at Edirne (1878), Konya (1901) and Aydın (1924) formed the first three great links in the history of industrial education in Anatolia. The Konya School of Industry therefore holds historic importance as one of the institutions that lit the fuse of vocational education in pre-Republican Anatolia.
When the school began teaching in September 1901 under the name "Mekteb-i Sanayii", it had only two workshops (ironwork and carpentry), three teachers and seventeen students. Over the three-year course there were two hours of theory in the morning followed by six hours of practice in the workshops. Its founding purpose was twofold: to take poor and orphaned children under its wing and give them a trade, and at the same time to contribute to the city's industry and its need for technical staff.
A Front-Line Factory in the War Years
As needs grew, the school expanded its workshops: a foundry in 1912, and in 1915, in response to the demands of the front in the First World War, workshops for shoemaking, tailoring, vests and socks. The sock and vest workshop founded in 1915 worked day and night, sending thousands of pairs of socks and vests straight to the front; in this period the school went beyond being a place of education and became one of the army's logistical support centres. In the same year the first showing of silent film, brought to Konya for the first time, also took place in this school's halls — the building is not only a place of industrial education but the site of a "first" in the history of Konya's cultural modernisation.
More Than a Century of Changing Names and Places
The Konya School of Industry has followed an uneven course since its founding, changing its name with every reform in the education system:
- 1901 – Konya School of Industry (Mekteb-i Sanayi): the founding name.
- After 1908 – Hamidiye School of Industry / Regional School of Crafts: the naming of the reign of Abdülhamid II.
- Early Republic – Konya School of Crafts, then School of Crafts / Regional School of Crafts.
- 1943 – Boys' Institute of Crafts: a new structure by decision of the Board of Education.
- 1973 – Industrial Vocational High School, with a Technical High School added in 1978.
- After the 1990s – Konya Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School: its present name.
The school closed once in 1906, reopened in 1915 and produced for the front during the war years, closed again in 1922 and reopened in the same building in the first years of the Republic. Attached to the Ministry of National Education in 1927, it gained momentum; departments of motor mechanics were added in 1951 and of electricity in 1952. In 1967–68 the school moved to its new building on Larende Avenue — today's Konya Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School.
The 1979 Fire and the Building Today
After the school moved out, the old building on Mevlana Avenue served for a time between 1968 and 1977 as Karatay High School (Konya's first co-educational high school), and in 1979 suffered a great fire in which much of its tile ornament was lost. Standing empty for a while afterwards, the building was placed on the Cultural Inventory in 1982 and from 1988 was used as the Konya Governorship Provincial Special Administration building. Transferred to the Konya Metropolitan Municipality in 2014 when the provincial special administrations were closed, the building today, after restoration, houses the Municipal Police Department.
The building has not entirely severed its link with its original purpose: since 1967–68 the Konya Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School has continued to keep the spirit and mission of the School of Industry alive in its new building on Larende Avenue.
The Guide's Note
On your next visit to Konya, as you walk along Mevlana Avenue, stop for a minute in front of this building. Look at the inscriptions on its walls, at the texture of the cut stone. In that moment you will feel the adventure that began in 1901 with seventeen children in the ironwork and carpentry workshops; the thousands of pairs of socks knitted here during the First World War; the first silent film screening held in its halls in 1915. To know Konya is to know not only its museums and mosques but silent witnesses like this one too.