In the early years of the Turkish Republic, discussions on scientific childcare led to the implementation of preventive healthcare principles in school environments. Meanwhile, critiques of Ottoman-era school buildings highlighted their unhygienic conditions as both a consequence and a catalyst for the authoritarian dynamics and religious teachings present in these institutions. These conditions were contrasted with the supposedly healthier and more progressive Republican-era schools. Reflecting on their childhood experiences during the Late Ottoman period, many authors wrote about an uncanny adjacency of their school environments to religious settings such as graveyards. Laden with terms like dust, mold, cobwebs, and foul smells, these narratives often evoked imagery of decay and darkness alongside memories of punitive teaching methods and religious instruction, aiming to instill fear and anxiety towards the former schooling environments. This underscored perceived deficiencies of the former education system and validated the republic's modernization efforts, metaphorically and literally utilizing school architecture. This paper explores the intricate intersection of modernizing school-building activities with cultural metaphors and material changes. It analyzes a prevalent narrative constructed by early republican intellectuals that blended scientific knowledge with political discourse to critique Ottoman-era schools while reflecting the cultural transformations of the period. Examining textual and visual representations from popular periodicals, the paper elucidates how perceptions of school environments shaped broader discussions surrounding modernization, secularization, and national identity in early republican Turkey.