Rebuilding of Beyoğlu-İstiklal Street: A Comparative Analysis of Urban Transformation Through Sections Along the Street 2004-2014

2017-12-28
Tekin, İlke
Akgün Gültekin, Asiye
Show full item record
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
406
views
256
downloads
The history of marketing urban spaces through showcasing them like commodities has started after the Second World War. The strategists, behind these window displays, are actors possessing political and economic capital. Urban transformation projects occurred as a consequence of the capital orienting to urban land, which brought about upheavals in socio-spatial structure. Considering the urban transformation projects in Turkey, Istanbul, as a city in the running to become a global city, is the preeminent showcase with its historical, cultural and economic potentials for the political and economic actors. The macro-scale urban transformation projects seen in Istanbul after 2000s can be observed on the micro scale in the rebuilding of Istiklal Street as the main artery in Beyoglu quarter, which is one of the historic city centers. In this context, this article analyzes the urban transformation initiatives in Istanbul focusing on the urban transformation of Istiklal Street and its immediate vicinity which has gained momentum from 2005. This research is predicated on a comparative spatial analysis of Istiklal Street. Sixty cross-sections were obtained from Taksim Square to Tunel Square in 2004 with a view to analyze the spatial use patterns on Istiklal Street. The study has been replicated in 2014 in order to analyze spatial transformation. In this regard, the research discusses the spatial transformation appeared in a decade, between 2004 and 2014, through the influences of capital and politics; and it presents the urban planning strategies oriented to global city, neoliberal policies and cultural tourism in Istanbul and the reflections of them in Beyoglu quarter. The spatial transformation of Istiklal Street is evaluated through the analysis per square meter of the cross-sectioned buildings, spatial comparisons, media scanning for monitoring actors and discourses, and interviews with landlords and tenants. In relation to the phenomenon of globalization, the paper deals with the transformation of spaces covered by culture, finance, informatics and tourism sectors, and catering and shopping spaces appealing to service these sectors with reference to the phenomenon of cultural tourism.
Architecture, Global city, Neoliberalism, Cultural tourism, İstiklal Street, Spatial transformation
http://jfa.arch.metu.edu.tr/archive/0258-5316/articles/metujfa2017212.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/50691
Department of Architecture, Article

Suggestions

Spatio-temporal structuration of art and cultural events mediated urban experience in Beyoğlu
Kahya, Güzin Yeliz; Ataöv Demirkan, Anlı; Department of City and Regional Planning (2015)
Over last 15 years, range of cultural events responding varied kinds of transculturally shaped and shared interests have embedded in the use of urban space in Beyoğlu, Istanbul. Locations of them have constituted dynamic self-organized clustering patterns in the vicinity of Istiklal Avenue. As bringing a focus on transpatially structured, cultural events mediated encounters and coexistences, the thesis simultaneously deals with spatial structuration of the cultural events through situating particular locati...
Evaluating the potentials of neglected urban spaces in hıstorıcal city centres to acquire a sense of place: the Iskıtler Small Industry area in Ankara
Alpdemir, İbrahim; Aral, Hacer Ela; Department of Architecture (2023-1-27)
Old city centres that have been able to preserve their position as the cultural and economic heart of an urban hinterland, function as a centre for converging the city’s lifelines as well as acting as a reflection of its image. The spatial and perceptive quality of a city’s centre plays an important role in maintaining its vitality and ensuing an image of its own. This quality is defined by the term place and is a notion that can be perceived by the simultaneous stimulation of the senses. This is something ...
Architecture of the state: Ankara istasyon caddesi in the late ottoman and early republican periods
Dedekargınoğlu, Cem; Altan, T. Elvan.; Department of History of Architecture (2019)
This study focuses on the late 19th and early 20th century urban transformation of Ankara as exemplified in the development of the axis connecting the train station to the city center. The temporal scope of the research starts with the 1890s when the train station was constructed and its connection with the city was established, and ends at the turn of the 1930s until when a number of buildings were erected on the İstasyon Caddesi axis, and when Jansen’s proposal for the development plan of Ankara started t...
Producing Urban Space After Urban Transformation: The Case of Çukurambar, Ankara
Tunçbilek, Lale; Basa, İnci; Department of Architecture (2022-9-5)
In the era of globalization and digitalization, to keep up with the uncontrolled rapid urbanization, cities have expanded unrestrainedly. This expansion also required an overhaul of the existing urban fabric. Urban transformation, mostly in the form of the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new, redefines the sociocultural urban complexity while creating spatial fragmentations. Approaching urban space as a dynamic entity that is produced over time, the material and cultural production of urban ...
Succeeding generations, changing trajectories: the influences of generational transition on the local pathways of development - the Kayseri experience
Hovardaoğlu, Ozan; Pınarcıoğlu, Mehmet Melih; Department of City and Regional Planning (2009)
The success of the local development experiences after the 1980s is associated with the non-economic components as well as the economic ones in the contemporary development literature. Most apparently, the literature seems to be intensified on the local institutions and on the local social interaction which creates reciprocal cooperative trust relations. These socially constructed local institutions refer to the local rules, routines and patterns having been directly influencing the relation among the local...
Citation Formats
İ. Tekin and A. Akgün Gültekin, “Rebuilding of Beyoğlu-İstiklal Street: A Comparative Analysis of Urban Transformation Through Sections Along the Street 2004-2014,” ODTÜ Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 153–179, 2017, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: http://jfa.arch.metu.edu.tr/archive/0258-5316/articles/metujfa2017212.pdf.
METU IIS - Integrated Information Service open@metu.edu.tr