Politics and culture in the making of public space: Taksim Square, 1 May 1977, Istanbul (original) (raw)

The Scale of Public Space: Taksim Square in Istanbul

A B S T R A C T This article aims at following the traces of the transformation of public sphere in Turkey through its manifestations on urban public spaces with the case study of Taksim Square. In this attempt, the article illustrates how Taksim square, as a public space, has been shaped by struggles between different ideologies, discourses, political decisions and daily activities taking place at personal, interpersonal, local, national, supranational and global scales. Through this way this article also aims at understanding how these contestations at different scales are affecting people, individually and collectively, from daily life practices to political integration. The article also discusses that our daily life practices and preferences are political decisions and our participation in public sphere occurs through those daily actions of the personal spheres. Therefore, the article suggests that a paradigm shift is needed in the design and production of the built environments that will facilitate the coexistence of multiple counter publics.

ISTANBUL'S TAKSIM SQUARE: AS A TERRAIN OF POLITICAL SYMBOL AND MATTER OF CONTESTATION

Urban spaces are the representatives of political ideologies and concern of power relations. Istanbul's Taksim Square is such a public space that serves as a political representation and a symbolic for many ideological groups in Turkey. Its symbolic characteristic arose from its production, as it was planned and organized to signify the hegemonic power and the ideology of the early Republican state. However, as political balance shifts, many ideological groups have claims on the hegemonic meaning of the Square. Through this claims, the symbolic meaning of Taksim has become a matter of contestation. Lately, in 2013, following the announcement of AKP's grand projects in Taksim, Turkey witnessed a massive public demonstration.

Analyzing the Publicness of Konak Square in Izmir

Paper Presented at the Joint AESOP-ACSP Congress at Dublin, 2013

This paper focuses on Konak Square, which has been a central place in Izmir, Turkey, both in terms of transportation and in terms of certain public practices. The square and its environment have been through major transformations, and yet there are recently two different debates on transforming the place once again. We are examining the discourse related with these suggested changes in terms of their potential public practices in the light of the different publicness that the city has experienced in this place in history. Concentrating on the historical and contingent transformations of Konak square enable us to discuss the social, political, and economic circumstances that have been making the square a different public space in each period.

Istanbul's Taksim Square and Gezi Park: the place of protest and the ideology of place

2014

AbstractMay 2013 saw Istanbul witness a massive public demonstration. The incident began on 28 May when a small group of environmental activists tried to save Gezi Park, one of the most iconic green spaces in the Taksim district of central Istanbul. The park dates back to the 1940s and is well-known as public promenade. The modest demonstration was triggered by a government decision to reconstruct a former Ottoman Artillery Barracks. Within a few days, it developed into a violent uprising on an unprecedented scale lasting almost an entire month. Crowds not only gathered in Istanbul but also in many other Turkish cities such as the capital, Ankara. International media broadcast the protests live from Taksim Square turning the Gezi Park protest into an international phenomenon. Today the Park has become a reference point in Turkish politics where almost every issue is linked to the ‘spirit of Gezi’. It made a modest protest over an inner city promenade into a vivid symbol of political...

FUTURE OF ISTANBUL’S TAKSIM SQUARE: APPROPRIATED BY CARS OR PEDESTRIANS?

TAW Tirana Architecture Week, 2012

Essentially this paper analyses a current debate on Taksim Square, which is the most commonly known open public space of Istanbul, Turkey. The debate is basically about the municipality’s project to pedestrianize the square, which is already used mainly by pedestrians but planned to be cleared up totally from any vehicular traffic. This brings to the minds one of the non-lasting discussions of urban design; that is the accompaniment or segregation of cars and pedestrians. Although the local –and also the central government- presents its intention as “creating a pedestrian-friendly urban square”, the project has different dimensions, specifically related with political and cultural conjunctures. The paper discusses the appropriation of urban space by cars or by pedestrians through this up-to-date debate, while it tries to make inferences about political and cultural claims over public space.