Lines Uninterrupted: Drawing Supplies and the Architecture of Scarcity in 1970s–1980s Türkiye

This paper examines the material history of architectural drawing in Türkiye during the 1970s and 1980s, a period shaped by political and economic instability. Following the 1974 Cyprus intervention, Türkiye faced a U.S. arms embargo, strained relations with European institutions, and chronic foreign currency shortages that restricted access to imported goods. These pressures were compounded by the global oil crises of the 1970s, which intensified inflation, disrupted industrial supply chains, and introduced new limitations to the availability of essential drawing supplies—tracing paper, technical pens, graphite, and precision drafting tools. Architects, students, educators, and suppliers responded by maintaining alternative commercial channels, mobilizing local resources, devising substitute materials, and adapting techniques to new conditions. Drawing on archival research, oral histories, and trade data, the paper situates these practices within broader frameworks of technological dependency, geopolitical tension, and localized innovation. Rather than viewing scarcity merely as a constraint, the study foregrounds it as a generative force that reshaped pedagogical models, design processes, and representational norms.

This research contributes to global architectural historiography by foregrounding media and tools at a time when Western-centric narratives are increasingly being reassessed. The continued dominance of construction-centered discourse and the marginalization of conceptual practices in non-Western contexts have hindered critical engagement with alternative historical perspectives. By centering the materiality of drawing, this paper offers a method for tracing parallel narratives that challenge the teleology of modernization and reveal how global architectural histories are mediated through everyday tools and material contingencies.