Hatice Utkan- published in Hürriyet Daily News- City Brief Supplement
In a recent interview with the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review, Kadir Has University Vice Rector Hasan Bülent Kahraman shared his thoughts on urban transformation, urban culture and what has changed in Istanbul, saying that conventional understanding of the urban transformation process would suggest that the evolution of Istanbul has been completed.
“[In this sense,] Istanbul has finished,” said Kahraman, without doubt.
The city has finished because, starting from the 1950s, contemporaneous transformation processes damaged the original architectural and historical tissues of the city.
“Fatih, Çarşamba, Yenikapı, Karaköy and even Pera have gone,” added Kahraman. “We can only talk about a “finished” historical tissue of Istanbul.”
“We witnessed that when Vatan Street, in the district of Karaköy, and Bagdat Street were transformed. Transformation after the 1950s focused on destroying original districts and building different things on them, or instead of them,” said Kahraman.
“It was wild and it was savage,” he said, adding that what he deemed such apparently insensitive planning policies had damaged the originality of the city.
“Cities like Istanbul constantly produce land rents which no one can control, when the population increases, no one can control anything,” said Kahraman.
An example of the kind of reaction to uncontrolled land rents by some Istanbul residents can be seen in the history of a part of Bebek, an urban area in the city’s inner northern suburbs. According to Kahraman, there is a street in Bebek called “in brook.”
“People [simply] built their houses in the brook [to avoid the uncontrolled land rents],” he said.
While conventional attitudes toward urban transformation require some recognition of renewal or growth through development at a policy level, according to Kahraman this kind of example of how urban Istanbul organically transforms itself reinforces the notion that development policy in the city constantly faces potential exhaustion.
(Hürriyet photo)
“In this context we can say that Istanbul has finished.”
History and evolution in the urban landscape
However, “the finish” of the city is not about the end of its history, a nostalgic romanticisation of the city, or even the completion of a greater historical urban project, Kahraman said.
“There is another aspect of the urban transformation process, which began in early 1994, when 7.5 million new residents started populating new centers beyond the traditional borders of the city, which we call satellite towns.”
Municipalities worked to meet the needs of the people in these rapidly growing satellite towns. “This triggered one of the most significant transformation processes in the city,” said Kahraman adding that the movement between these areas contributed to the inner transformation processes of Istanbul.
“As the middle class develops and changes, the city’s essence, or “esprit,” changes and Turkey went through this process very radically.”
Coordinated or organic transformation?
Istanbul is currently experiencing some radical alterations to its urban landscape, as newer attitudes toward transformation and development are beginning to question the degree to which policy should coordinate the transformation process.
“This is related to the capital reservoir of Turkey. In the past, Turkey could not figure where capital investment should be directed so finally spent the money on increasing production.”
“However, Turkey is slowly beginning to redirect the investment of this reservoir into the longer term cultural pools of the arts and education,” he added. And yet, redirecting the investment in the urban landscape in Istanbul is not without its own series of difficulties.
“Currently, the city that we live in is in a transformation process. We can call this process both fair and unfair.”
The process is fair because some districts in Istanbul, which had been neglected until recently are on the policy and planning agenda. “Yet this is a speculative project. In every part of the world reviving a “forgotten place” makes it premium,” he said.
“However there are also slums and when we attempt to turn these areas into premium quality districts, this becomes gentrification. But it is impossible to find the old culture, the old architecture, or the old tissue in these districts when the gentrification process is complete, according to Kahmraman.
“For example Cihangir was always a “high” district of Istanbul, however during 1980s it went through a period of dilapidation as it accommodated tranvestites, prostitutes and drug dealers, following which it became the bohemian center of Istanbul.”
While Cihangir might remind us of Soho in New York City, it has changed to the same extent as Asmalımescit and Galata, according to the professor. Cihangir was never a slum but is has seen changes.
Transformation of poverty
Starting in 1994, Turkey witnessed the transformation of poverty, Kahraman said.
The shanty houses which used to be so prevalent in many areas in Istanbul were knocked down and replaced by large buildings. “People who lived in those shanty houses were transported to the satellite towns, into large buildings.”
However, transferring shanty house residents to large buildings with higher standards of living does not mean that they are no longer poor. “Their poverty is hidden behind the facades of the buildings,” said Kahraman.
On the other hand, Turkey has developed another urban landscape in the form of “residences.” “These residences are called gated communities. People who live in these places isolate people from others.”
“Turkey, in short, is stuck between the contradictory discussions between different kinds of societies,” said Kahraman.
Gallery attack
Commenting on a recent attack on a string of Istanbul art galleries, Kahraman said: “Sociological events are always very complex and it is a fact that the struggle will always exist.”
Tophane is a very old district houses a very different mixture of society. The gallery owners have brought another kind of culture to the area and as a result, the tissue of culture changed there, Kahraman said.
“Starting from Çukurcuma district, including Tophane, there is a really fast transformation process in this area and struggle, or at least some discussions, are inevitable. Tophane has witnessed really deep immigration. There are many people living there from the East part of Turkey such as Siirt, Mardin, Bitlis and so on. Those people are conservative people, their way of seeing culture is different, their male-dominant lives are different.”
So when there is a change there, even if it is about land or property they feel awkward and they do not want it. There are ungated communities in Tophane, trying to live together, Kahrman said.
It is normal that struggles are experienced during urban transformation processes, Kahraman said.