istanbulmetro . istanbul architecture design

Istanbul Urban Age conference /Architecture and Urbanism Days, Garanti Galeri / Arkitera

Next week finds Istanbul as a subject of a major urbanism conference organized by Urban Age.   According to their web site, Urban Age is a six-year sequence of international conferences held in cities across Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe between 2005 and 2010 funded by the London School of Economics and the Alfred Herrhausen Society of Deutsche Bank.  You can find the conference program here.

Also Garanti Galeri and Arkitera are co-organizing something called Architecture and Urbanism Days. The conference program can be downloaded here. The high point for me will be the release of Garanti Galeri’s Mapping Istanbul book edited by Pelin Derviş and Meriç Öner.  Also some panels  on architecture and urbanism in Istanbul.

Although I am not an urbanist, the connection of urbanism to architecture does give me some perspective on this issue.  Here are my top 10 aspects of Istanbul urbanism that need to be addressed:

1.  There is no professional group concerned about the design of public spaces in Istanbul and Turkey.   Architects are concerned about their building’s profile, urban planners about the legitimacy of the master plan, landscape architects largely don’t exist.  Who claims urban space and urban design then? Who is responsible for creating “place”?   Take a walk in the Maslak district to understand this.

2.  Istanbul urbanism is driven in important part by informal Anatolian town development dynamics with emphasis on extended family relationships.   Planning of new residential zones does not seem to take this account.

3.  Most buildings in Istanbul are constructed using steel reinforced concrete.  As the dominant construction material of Turkey, reinforced concrete buildings dominate the city.   There will be no major transformation of the city’s urbanism until alternative building systems are made available.

4.  Corruption determines building patterns.   Networks of commercial associations creates the means of construction. Land and building opportunities are speculative enterprises organized in deals behind closed doors.

5. Existing building stock stinks. 95% of the buildings in Istanbul are terrible examples of architecture.   Until these buildings are removed the city’s urbanism is not going to change in a meaningful way.

6. Contemporary architecture in Turkey has no value system.  How do you improve urbanism in Istanbul if most of the architects are rehashing tired modernist design principals? Architecture in Turkey needs to stand for something beyond client’s needs, the architects design sthick or a developer’s marketing strategy.

7.  The concept of  “public” slowly developing, to slowly.   Western based ideas of civic public and public space have only been developed in the past 60/70 years in Istanbul.   The creation of public spaces is a minor aspect of urban growth which is largely driven by commercial public projects such as shopping centers, office buildings and residential complexes. Where are the public spaces that could be the engines of civic culture, the parks, plazas,  public libraries, museums, athletic facilities,  etc.

8.  Urban design planning principals do not exist.  The visage of the city is blighted by a hodge-podge of half-finished, poorly maintained buildings adorned with  nasty signage and dubious decoration.  These outlandish scenes can be seen in high income as well low income areas.  Go stand in front of the Akmerkez Shopping Center for an example.

9. There was a good stretch of decent architecture in Istanbul in the 1950s and 1960s that is under threat.   Quality buildings from this period such as the Istanbul Hilton, the I.M.Ç.,  AKM are for some reason not regarded as historically or architecturally important by the powers that be.  The result being that all these buildings are currently under threat of destruction. The first waves of modernism in  Istanbul need to respected as disciplined and thought-out examples of modernism.  The concept of the ” historic past “in Istanbul needs to incorporate the developments of the 20th century.

10.   The image of the city is static.  The identity of the city is too dependent on historic models (the silhouette of mosques and minarets for example). An integrative forward thinking concept of Istanbul urbanism needs to be identified.

4 comments October 30th, 2009

Some thoughts on the nomadic in İstanbul - Sébah & Joaillier

So there is not a whole lot out there in terms of analysis of the dynamic urban systems of Istanbul.  These would be the manifestations of the nomadic economies of Asian and African origin in Anatolia and Eastern Europe.  Specifically those last 19th century actors of a civilization that had been active for more then 2000 years.  The Euro-Asiatic synthesis based on the micro to the macro movements of people in urban forms of habitation.  From village to town to regional capital to Istanbul the fluid relations coursed threw a dynamic decentralized network adapted from the fluid movement sytems of the steppe and the desert.   The performance of this culture, this ethos, in and by the Anatolian peasantry represented a uniqe synthesis that had its most vociferous exposition in Constantinople/İstanbul.  Of course there is the important work of Stefanos Yerasimos on urbanism in Istanbul.  His analysis of the transformation of the meydan concpet from the Ottoman period into the 19th century.  Maybe you can throw in Zeynep Çelik’s streetwise analysis of a block in Sultanahmet.

Or perhaps one can accept the fact that most persuasive creative statement analyzing 19th century İstanbul comes from artists who lived at the time, the work of   the photographers  Sébah & Joaillier.  From their offices on 493 Grande Rue de Pera they honed a surgical if not fantastic eye on 19th century İstanbul.  Their capturing the systems of the nomadic economy, the various peddlers, hawkers, deliveryman, religious figures and mendicants provide the first and last glimpse to an ancient world that would quickly then disappear.

Sébah & Joaillier

Photograph by Sébah & Joaillier, "Professor and his students"

Add comment March 8th, 2009

Contemporary Istanbul, Forces on the Move

“Integrated systems: When everything is connected to everything else, for better or worse, everything matters.” Bruce Mau

It is clear from the events of the past year that we are in a critical period of world history. The global financial and economic crisis, the monumental dangers posed by worldwide ecological change and continued wars across the Middle East and Asia, are at the top of the list of serious problems that have shaken the foundations of the global system. The crisis itself has in fact started many people to rethink the values behind the current market based capitalism that seems to be at the root of these problems. As we assess the first wave of globalism that has occurred over the past 20 years, it seems a revision is necessary in the system itself. The time has come to imagine how to live, learn, work, and play together as a global community in a broader way then was possible before.

This line of thought and action requires us to think of what we can do in our own local place that can contribute something unique to the global community. What do I have that I can give to the globe that can add to a new formulation? How is my local applicable to the global? What are the productive and progressive values of my situation that can make be meaningful on the world stage? The next task then becomes one of action. In order for these ideas to filter into a new system, ultimately this optimistic somewhat utopic way of thinking then has to be translated into a new culture, a new global community.

It is here that we the meaning behind Istanbul culture is something to be thought about. Living and working in Istanbul we often take for granted the cultural and creative formulation existent in the city. While thousands come to Istanbul looking for the past, it is ironic the residents of the city live in an uneasy relationship to its present. Contemporary life in Istanbul, its culture, its literature, art and design, exists in a unresolved relation between past and present. For Istanbul to contribute to the global community the contemporary in Istanbul, the meaning of contemporary culture in Istanbul needs to be identified.

Istanbul has been a center of ideas for thousands of years. The often stated “bridge between cultures” role of the city has despite some over use still holds true today. Istanbul’s culture represents a unique synthesis of many things. From its foundations in ancient Greece to the following Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and contemporary Turkish civilizations, Istanbul is a repository of ideas and qualities that are important historically and for their relevance to a wider cultural perspective.

When thinking of the relevance of Istanbul to the wider world it is to its quality as a place of sharing and diversity. For many years this sense of communities and cultures sharing a common space is a force that motivated the city as place of inclusion and cultural synthesis. The culture of Istanbul in fact can be said to be not a single “authentic culture” but rather an amalgam of cultural forces constantly on the move. Similar to the famous winds that stream over the city from all directions, Istanbul culture is a place of dynamic forces in constant dialogue. It is never just one thing but a collection of things on the move. This dynamism is a central aspect of contemporary culture in Istanbul today. As the noted American writer and poet James Baldwin, a resident of Istanbul throughout the 1960’s commented about the city, “It is both in Europe and in Asia, which means it is neither Christian nor Muslim, neither white nor black.” Not being one idea but a place of interaction between ideas for many years it is important today to focus on how these dynamics can be developed.

In speaking of contemporary Istanbul culture at the start of the 21^st century there are many ideas emerging from its past that can be explored today as a contribution to the global community. This place of interaction, the place of exchange and resolution, the place where differing cultures can co-exist, these dynamic aspects of the urban identity of Istanbul that are coded even into it’s name. The word Istanbul originating from the Greek “is tin polis” means “to the city” itself denotes the sense of dynamic action We do not have time in this short essay to completely detail the qualities of Istanbul culture that contribute to a new global community and ecology, but ideas such as cultural entropy, mobile culture, informal cultures, archeology and the past in the contemporary, bricolage culture, spirituality and consciousness in everyday life are all concepts that exist in contempoary Istanbul in a meaningful way. These concepts form the basis of a dialogue that is continued at many levels and cross-sections of society. These are part of a broader framework of the basic foundations of Istanbul culture that can be explored through the interaction of major global figures with Istanbul.

The task at hand for contemporary culture in Istanbul is to at this most important time in our globe figure out what we have to that can contribute to the global community, to establish a meaningful dialogue with the global community that is about ideas and concepts that we have, to value our concepts and bring them to the world stage. For many years, almost 300 to be exact, we have been concerned with importing culture, gaining validity by bringing in the latest and greatest from the largely the West. It seems now the time to change and move things in the opposite direction. What can contemporary Istanbul give to the world that is unique….

Add comment February 10th, 2009

Galata revival…finally, real estate developer NOA walks the walk

NOA’s residential projects in the Galata Tower area

For about 20 years now the area around the Galata tower has been the focus of constant real estate speculation. It has been talked about endlessly as the first big thing in downtown Istanbul’s eventual gentrification. The new Soho, the new Marais, yuppies, wine bars, cafes, urban hipsters etc. etc. the future for the neighborhood that was once home to Istanbul’s Christian community was all but a done deal.

20 years on the area seems to finally be living up to the hype. While up the street in Tünel and Asmalımescit cafe society is booming, down around the tower we will soon soon the completion of a number of residential buildings that is set to make the Galata district Istanbul’s second bourgeois bohemia enclave (after Cihangir). And the credit has to go to the company that is doing the most to realize this effort, the property developers NOA led by the young, dynamic Sarp Tiryakioğlu. You can check out the NOA projects, 3 residential properties of rental apartments on their web site. These are primarily refurbishments of nearly 100 year old buildings with the only contemporary architecture here being the renovation of ALI HOCA 6 building by the architect Elif Özdemir.

I had a chance to visit the as yet to be completed Ali Hoca 6 a couple of weeks back and was impressed by the simple and straightforward design by Özdemir who seems to be expert at doing a lot with a little. Despite a fairly limited budget her direct use of industrial materials against the cleaned up skeleton of the old building creates a agreeable harmony between old and new that brings a contemporary flair to this ancient neighborhood. Both NOA’s Tiryarkioğlu and Özdemir have to be given credit for the detailed and difficult work that will undoubtedly be a benchmark in Galata’s property sector.

Add comment May 13th, 2008

Zaha Hadid project in Kartal, Istanbul, an update

Zaha Hadid master plan for Kartal, Istanbul, stone quarry area around E5 highway

In an era of massive change in urban centers, Istanbul is set to make its mark as a major world city with a signature project for the 21st century. The Kartal, Zaha Hadid project, or as it is officially known, the Kartal Industrial Area Central Business District Plan (Kartal Sanayi Bölgesi Merkezi İş Alanları Planlaması) is the city’s most ambitious building project undertaken in recent memory. If it is built according to Hadid’s master plan, the 555 hectare site stretching from the Sea of Marmara up to the stone quarries of the E5 highway will be an important business district and center for tourism and leisure. Furthermore, the project’s focus on business and tourism activity will make it an important alternative business district to Istanbul’s current Central Business District in the Levent-Mazlak zone as the city attempts to make a mark on the global stage. Hadid’s design, an ambitious architectural vocabulary of flowing forms and undulating lines in steel, glass and concrete never seen before in the country, promises to be a bold statement in futurism for a city dominated for so long by it’s history.

Zaha Hadid master plan for Kartal, Istanbul, Kartal coast line and new marina
Hadid unveils new project images
An important step in this project’s development took place on Feburary 21, 2008, in a press conference at the city government bureau that originated this effort, the Istanbul Greater Municipality, Metropolitan Planning and Urban Design Centre, (İstanbul Metropoliten Planlama ve Kentsel Tasarım Merkezi). At the conference attended by Hadid, Mayor Kadir Topbas, Kartal Mayor Arif Dağlar, İMP Director Prof. Dr. İbrahim Baz and architectural consultant Süha Özkan details were announced for the Kartal project as it moved from vision to reality. In what will be Istanbul’s most important building project since ex-Mayor Bedrettin Dalan’s infrastructural road works of the 1980s, new project drawings and computer images were unveiled that show a vast cityscape of Hadid’s slipstream forms in a mix of tower and courtyard building types. This project which dates back to an invited competition in 2005 that included other top tier architects such as Kisho Kurokawa, Massimiliano Fuksas, was won by Zaha Hadid in 2006 . The consortium of stakeholders in the project, a mix of local government, landowners, a planning commission and an architect of an international stature such as Hadid was a first for Istanbul and Turkey. While in the last two years the project had been stuck in limbo as the landowners negotiated with each other and the Kartal and Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediye, the recent press conference was a clear sign that this project will be moving forward to construction pegged for 2009.

What we see now in these new drawings is that Zaha Hadid Architect’s design has been gone through increased levels of detailing since it was first voted winner of the invited competition back in 2006. The designs for the initial winning proposal showed a sleek landscape of buildings that mimicked Istanbul’s undulating topography. These buildings were a mix of a few dominant types – towers that resembled stretched tree trunks, lozenge shaped square buildings some with courtyards and flat pointy attenuated diamond shape structures stretching out in the sea. The plan coordinated the shapes of the buildings into a wavy, undulating landscape that fluidly connected each building. The concept was to calibrate the fluidity of Istanbul’s dynamic urbanism with its counterpoint in Hadid’s dynamic architectural geometry. The plan amounted to a web or net of buildings weaving together the existing older fabric with the new. Areas of density with clumps of towers were mixed with low rise buildings to form this man-made hilly architopography. The design and size, over 6,000,000m2 construction area, combined to make this undertaking one of the most radical effort taken in Istanbul architecture and planning since the golden age of Ottoman architecture in the 16th century.

Zaha Hadid with Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbaş during February 2008 press conference

The Municipalities polycentric urban design strategy
While the project was rolled out with a major publicity campaign, in the interim between 2006 there was little news about the development of the project beyond Hadid’s and Mayor Topbas’ occasional public announcements that the landowners had been negotiating the details of the plan. The participation of the private sector was in fact an important element of Kartal differentiating it from other large public works projects in Turkey currently. The regeneration scheme was a joint public and private sector initiative providing it, in the minds of many, half a chance of being built as initially proposed in Hadid’s visionary design.

The program was driven from the Municipalities desire to create an alternative to the European side influence on the city in the “bedroom communities” of the Asian side. As such it called for a mix of public and private activities including the center piece central business district in addition to high-end residential development, cultural facilities such as concert halls, museums, and theatres, and leisure programs including a marina and tourist hotels. The press conference in February provided more detail and showed the plan had advanced from concept towards preparations for construction. Hadid’s plan was an ambition one, largely based on the IMP’s and Mayor Topbas’ desire to create multiple city centers for economic benefit and transportation/logistical efficiency. The master plan’s main strategies according to Hadid are:

• to balance Istanbul: helping the city to become polycentric (as an antidote to the current mono-centric bias of the European side.)
• to generate an economic impetus: creating a ripple effect of wealth into the areas adjacent to the master plan.
• to create new vibrant, urban city quarters where approximately 100 000 people can live and work, supported by integrated public transport

Radical architecture for an old city
At the press conference new renders created by Zaha Hadid Architects showed the project at a more advanced stage of design. The architectural language of undulating waves and net-like forms in the initial concept had now been adapted more convincingly to the urban context. Instead of the large monolithic blocks of the concept, the new renders show a more nuanced language dominated by the large tree trunk towers and the lozenge shaped perimeter blocks buildings lining the axes of the main blocks of the plan. Criticism of the initial concept’s overtly monolithic scale and lack of street level planning that could synthesize more convincingly with Istanbul’s famous street activity was now settled with this design. At street level in this updated scheme, spaces flowed into other spaces in a dynamic fluid way throughout the plan. The architecture of the orthogonal and square which was and is the dominant language of Turkish architecture was in Hadid’s design replaced by an architecture of the curve and vector. Not since the days of Mimar Sinan had Istanbul seen an architecture that combined mathematical and formal precision in such a convincing way. Seemingly Hadid’s dynamic architecture had more in common with the premodern classical Ottoman period than the watered down modernist, 20th century architecture that had been employed in Istanbul’s architecture for such a long time.

The importance of Hadid’s Kartal plan architecturally could now also be clearly seen. Istanbul long suffering from a lack of a distinct contemporary urban design language and character has now been given with these latest images from the Kartal project a new forward looking vision. This vision, an architecture of dynamic, sweeping forms in glass and steel with great lateral and vertical power has to considered one of the first original takes on what contemporary architecture in Istanbul and Turkey could be as the city tries to become capital of the Eurasian region. The long standing domination of the anonymous, informal architectures of the squatter areas and urban sprawl of the last 30 years could now finally be reconfigured by a bold statement in architectural form. In the context of modern architecture and real estate in Istanbul, the worn out 20th century modernist architectures still employed by the vast majority of Turkish architects was now given an alternative in Hadid’s design. Both the existing formal and informal architecture of Istanbul, the hegemonic combination in the urban fabric of anonymous apartment buildings and unpleasant modernist blocks, could seemingly after many years give way to a vision for a new Istanbul of dynamic, attenuated, lively forms.

Hadid’s design will undoubtedly grow and develop through more detailed work in her own office and with the inclusion of many other architects responsible for each building’s design. If the over-taxed Hadid can keep creative focus on this project, we expect more details of this convincing design where more interesting formal and architectonic conditions of equal innovative force will be revealed. In light of the failure of the last 30 years to create a bold design for such an important city as Istanbul it seems miraculous that Hadid’s team comprised of young architects including a few Turkish architects (Sevil Yazici, Saffet Bekiroglu) has gotten this far at all in their design work.

Zaha Hadid master plan for Kartal, Istanbul, aerial view of Kartal and project area


Current view of Kartal, Istanbul 2008

o A gridded network of streets with 3 major clusters of density, allowing for a dynamic skyline that takes advantage of the coastal disposition, sea views and controlling vistas.
o A new main Boulevard to be the primary artery - the “spine” of the entire masterplan – providing connectivity between the new metro station in the North and the rail and motorway transport hub in the South - with a new over ground light railway/tram.
o Two main Central Business Districts: one in the North and one in the South of the masterplan.
o A polarity of major focal points with large public and recreational areas:
The North: the quarry becomes a major open recreational area - landscaped and centred around the lake.
The South: the marina and recreational areas near the seafront are developed in conjunction with the Cultural District.

2 comments May 13th, 2008

More Zorlu, project in rough waters, court suspends construction

The Zorlu saga continues this time on the legal side. Last week a local Istanbul court suspended the project’s zoning putting this hallmark project of the AKP era into jeopardy. Zorlu is apparently appealing the case according to news reports. With the current unstable political environment seemingly continuing into next year Zorlu will have to wait until the political dust settles to figure out where to focus it’s “lobbying” efforts.

Add comment May 8th, 2008

Istanbul Dolmuş and Minibus Map - superpool

For the uninitiated, Istanbul is a city that is notoriously difficult to navigate. While getting back and forth across the Bosphorus via ferryboat or going up and down the Levent-Taksim subway are fairly easy operations, anything else more complex requires lots of local knowledge and/or pluckiness. One of the urban transportation systems that most visitors to the city never, or honestly speaking are unable to use because of the sheer difficulty of figuring out how they work are the city’s vast networks of minibuses and dolmuş (shared taxis). These minibuses and minivans run point-to-point from centers throughout the city allowing passengers to get on and off anywhere en route for a shade of what it would cost for a taxi. Extremely efficient but devilishly inscrutable in their operations for non-residents, the dolmuş and minibus lines are a ubiquitous presence in Istanbul’s famous snarled traffic.

For years I thought that the city government would eventually publish a map of these bus systems being as they were a de facto part of the public transportation system. Of course, they never did but lo and behold, two enterprising young architects, Gregers Tang Thomsen and Selva Gürdoğan of Superpool have. These two ex-OMA staffers have put together an accurate map that looks more like a subway map then an a fairly ad-hoc network of buses. The map will soon be available for purchase to both visitors and residents alike. More details when i get them.

1 comment November 22nd, 2007

Turkey Cinemascope, exhibition of Nuri Bilge Ceylan photographs at the National Theatre, London

Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Curved street in winter, Istanbul, 2004


Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Stormy weather on the Galata bridge, 2004

Filmmaker and photographer Nuri Bilge Ceylan has a show of photographs currently at the National Theatre in London. The exhibition, Climates: Turkey Cinemascope, is shown in parallel with his latest film, Climates/İklimler, which he directed and acted in (interestingly enough his character in the film was a mean architectural historian). The photographs in the exhibit were taken as a part of location scouting for the film and hence of a highly cinematic flavor, very close to the films photographic vision. Aesthetically they also owe something to the legendary photographer Ara Güler who was the first photographer to delve into the labyrinth of Istanbul to come up with artistic gems out of the urban mishmash. The city being as photogenic as it ends lends itself easily to this slighly aestheticized documentary style of photography. In the hands of a good photographer like Ceylan, his stern eye is able to capture the play between the fleeting flows of people and traffic against an urban backdrop of dark geometric beauty that are hallmarks of Istanbul’s urbanism.

[from artkrush via BldgBlog]

Add comment March 26th, 2007

Istanbul for Sale: Dubai Towers, IETT Bus Garage & TCK Directorate of Highways sites sold

The long awaited sale of the IETT Bus Garage site happened yesterday in a lively event and auction broadcast nationally live on television. Sama Dubai (Dubai International Properties) owned by the Sheikh of Dubai with a bid of $705 million USD won out over second place Zorlu Group, one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates, manufacturers of TVs, appliances etc. Zorlu was the same company that created a stir a couple of weeks back when their bid of $800 million USD gained them a parcel in Zincirlikuyu that currenctly is home to the Istanbul branch of Turkey’s General Directorate of Highways, TCK.

Sama Dubai’s victory brings to an end a long negotiation between the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai’s minions and Istanbul and Turkey’s ruling AKP Party leadership. It was almost two years ago that the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality announced their intention to create a $5 billion joint venture with the Dubai group with the $500 million USD IETT Garage being the corner stone of the deal.

It seems Sama Dubai’s intention is to build something close to the twisting tower they had proposed in the original annoucement. Architecturally the twisting tower concept is closely related to Sama Dubai’s Dubai Tower project in Dubai which in itself is a superficial copy/paste of Santiago Calatrava’s twisting torso concept in Chicago and completed building in Sweden. The whole twisting motif seems to be a secondary by-product of the vogue in the blobular forms created by CAD software programs over the past decade.

Dubai Towers, Levent, Istanbul, Sama Dubai, 2005

I can not say i am not unhappy that this deal is going through as I think any and all internationalization of Istanbul and Turkey’s economy especially with this type of serious capital behind it is a good thing. I’m not going to quibble with the architecture of Dubai Towers because frankly I don’t think there is much hope in Sama Dubai or for that matter any other real estate developer in the Gulf creating anything original in architecture these days. This statement comes from my experiencing debating this point with these types of developers in the MIPIM real estate fair a couple of years back. Also it would also be correct to say that nothing original would’ve come out of the Turkish developers bidding for this deal as they are all fairly new to real estate development and architecture.

One of these deep pocketed neophytes, is the Zorlu Group, an electronics manufacturer with no experience in real estate development, in a similar bid and auction paid $800 million USD for a prize lot at the entrance of the Bosphorus Bridge owned by the State Highway Adminsitration, TCK, just a couple of weeks back. After the sale, Ahmet Nazif Zorlu, the head of the Zorlu Group, made some vague remarks about bringing a noted international architect to design the project. Most probably I’m guessing they will bring in some large SOM, KPFish corporate firm who will come up with a boxy agglomeration of volumes in steel and glass.

We are at the beginnings of an urban expansion in Istanbul. As with most things in Turkey, the process will be largely trial and error with hopefully the errors in architecture not being as heinous as those terrible examples that line the boulevards in Levent and Maslak today.

2 comments March 22nd, 2007

shopping mall bonanza…

İstinye Park, Development Design Group, İstinye, Istanbul

Let’s see…a bunch of shopping centers under construction in Istanbul right now…

Metro M1 Meydan, Umraniye, Istanbul, Metro Asset Management…already talked about that here…

City’s Nişantaşı by architect Sinan Kafadar for Gülaylar Altın, a gold manufacturer and retailer.

Then there’s Forum Istanbul, Bayrampaşa by Turkmalls, which will be the biggest mall in Turkey apparently.

As-yet unnamed mall on İstiklal Avenue in Beyoğlu by Han Tümertekin for the Demirören Group, construction started on that awhile back but seems to have stopped.

The half-way complete Istinye Park in the Bosphorus suburb of İstinye designed by the Development Design Group of Baltimore, USA.

And lastly the Özdilek Group, a large textile manufacturer out of Bursa, has started construction on 27,000m2 mixed use shopping center, hotel and condominium in Levent between Metrocity and Kanyon.

The obvious question here is, is there enough buying power in Istanbul to support all these malls? Apparently all of the above believe so.

Except for Kanyon and M1 Meydan, most of these projects are architecturally uninteresting. Beyond design, the compelling story here is the largely social ramifications of the shopping mall trend on Istanbul, its urban fabric, and looking forward, the impact of these shopping centers on the city’s sense of public. What we are seeing right now in Istanbul is in the newly burgeoning sense of a Public as a result of this shopping mall boom. These large public spaces are furthermore providing a type of space that was glaringly missing in Istanbul urbanim of late, large indoor public spaces.

My argument is that up until the present period in the history of Istanbul urbanism, large public buildings developed by local and national government were few and far between limiting the growth of a modern, public consciousness. There were no train stations, museums, theaters, sports arenas, the primary engines of contemporary urban public sensibilty. If we conceptually tie public space and the Public together as mutually supporting social forces, Istanbul while having some degree of large outdoor public spaces, especially the shore line parks built by Mayor Bedrettin Dalan in the 1980s, lacked completely large indoor public spaces and buildings. I emphasize the indoor aspect because it is important to note that Istanbul is not a Mediterranean city, there is the climactic reality that for almost 4 months of the year, the city’s winter weather is otherwise overcast and rainy meaning the population is shut up in their apartments for lack of any indoor alternatives.

Seeing the recent shopping mall boom this way, as an engine of growth for a public consciousness, I think there is some value to the construction of these buildings to balance the negative effects of the rampant consumerism that is the reason they are being built in the first place. Hopefully the developers have their economics correct and the city can enjoy these new public spaces in Istanbul’s near future.

City’s Nişantaşı, Sinan Kafadar architect, Nişantaşı, Istanbul

1 comment December 22nd, 2006