Urbanity reshaped: from an urban design competition to the making of a high-rise central business district at Bayraklı, in İzmir

Date

2019

Author

Soysal, Zeynep

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Urban fabric is constantly subjected to planning interventions with large-scale urban development projects that are usually imposed by both local and national governments. Generally, such urban development projects are the reflection of the property-based growth strategies. At the turn of the 21st century, in line with the neoliberal policies put into implementation at the international level, cities have started to compete with each other to attract investment. “City branding” that has become a common practice for local governments has led them to search for projects with more attractive images for their cities. The newly emerging central business district in Izmir has come to the agenda as part of such a strategy. In 2001, Izmir Metropolitan Municipality initiated an international urban design competition for the re-planning of a former industrial area as a new central business district. The present thesis takes the case of the central business district at Bayraklı in Izmir and analyzes the formation of the built environment created through the planning process and interventions of different actors taking part in that process. As a starting point, it is important to understand that large-scale urban development implementations are usually lengthy processes that involve different actors such as; planners, architects, politicians, landowners, investors and construction companies. In this case, it has been vi almost two decades since the competition was completed, following which the development plans were produced by the municipality. This thesis both analyzes the objectives of the urban design competition and the prize winning projects, and the planning process initiated by the municipality for this district. Finally, it evaluates the resultant urban environment through its capacity to offer an urban way of life that could be in harmony with Izmir’s urbanity. The interface of city planning and architecture is particularly studied, based on the argument that it characterizes the everyday life that urban fabric produces. The relationship and the transition between public and private spaces become an important determinant of the urbanity.

Subject Keywords

Architecture., Keywords: Urban way of life, Large-scale urban development projects, Urban design competitions, Planning processes, Interface between architecture and urban design.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12623532/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/43608

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis