Fire breaks out at historic Ankara neighborhood during TV series shooting

Duvar English

The Ankara Chamber of Architects has announced that a fire broke out at the historical Saraçoğlu neighborhood, which the government had banned from entering citing a “restoration project.”

The chamber said that the fire broke out on Dec. 17 as the TV action series named “Teşkilat” ('Organization' in English) was being shot in the neighborhood, news portal soL reported on Dec. 21. The TV series "Teşkilat" runs on state-run TRT.

The chamber asked why the authorities allowed the relevant production company to shoot the TV series in this historical neighborhood, saying it would file a lawsuit against the Culture Ministry regarding the incident.

The chamber said that the production company created a fire scene for the TV series, which resulted in the actual fire to take place.

“A fire was supposed to take place according to the scenario. The production teams have left the scene at about 1.40 a.m., believing that they have completely extinguished the fire. But at about 3 a.m, a fire broke out and the Metropolitan Municipality Fire Brigade Department extinguished the fire,” said the chamber.

“We are filing a lawsuit regarding the incident. The scenario of having a fire break out in a historical neighborhood lays the groundwork for the possibility of arson in the future,” the chamber said.

The Ankara Chamber of Architects managed to save Saraçoğlu in 2019. The historical neighborhood is famous for being Turkey’s first public housing project. Planned by the German architect Paul Bonatz and built in the 1940s, Saraçoğlu was slated to be scrapped and turned into a parking lot until the Ankara Chamber of Architects won a court case to safeguard it.