Last few days Istanbul has been the site of mass protests and battles raging for the Gezi Park (translating as stroll park) in Taksim District where the prime minister Erdogan's government wants to build a "Shopping Mall," a kitschy copy of a 19th. century building, Taksim Military Barracks, that was demolished in 1940 on the recommendations of French architect Henri Prost who is known for his work with Tony Garnier.
The morphing of the existing park with grown trees to enclosed courtyard style kitsch shopping mall.
The decision to demolish the park is really a most recent assault in accordance with the over commercialization of this historic city of 16 million people. The blunt action to send bulldozers to uproot the trees certainly hit a nerve with thousands of protesters who are fed up with government's draconian measures of late, threatening the basic liberties of Turkish society at large and the invasion of the publicness of the open spaces in Turkey's largest city.
The oppressively social and urbanistic nature of the unilateral action of the government and the regional authorities seem to hit a particular nerve with the public who has been occupying the park in order to save it with an unprecedented determination.
This is an important turning point in Turkish urbanism when the public is showing an increasing resistance to violent police action never seen before for the urban design policies of the government. This is a behind the doors deal of the government with their favored development partners for consumerist profit making. This is at the cost of public access to much needed green spaces in this densely overbuilt city. This is a top down urban policy repeated across in this world treasure city with 4000 years of cultural history.
This is now a movement in Istanbul and must be supported by architects and urbanists world over.
Show your support for Istanbul, spread the news and write to Turkish embassies in your country.
This is the time for solidarity.
We are with you Istanbul.
Archinect Editorial Team
50 Comments
#occupygezi
Thank you for sharing this Orhan. Hopefully this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back and ends the reign of Sultan Tayyip.
i stayed in one of the hotels near gezi park (it is more like a plaza, no?. it is a space of calmness in the vicinity of a very busy area. it would be such a pity to overtake this space. what it needs is such love and care, perhaps a small face lift here and there but not a face transplant!
but Orhan, don't you think that the plaza is underused? given the almost incredibly packed commercial/touristy area (istiklal) and the major arteries around it, the plaza seemed tired and underused. have the authorities deliberately left it that way? its a pity.
Taksim Square and adjacent vicinity, specifically Gezi Park is the place where the people of Turkey visit their conscience. Whether it is a major protest, celebration, May Day, remembrance of any type, it happens there. It can never be "underused."
From this point on, protests are not about saving the park only. That was the trigger.
Now the subtexts are Turkish liberties, anti capitalism, Erdogan's leadership, his brand of public land grab, corruption and no longer implicit despotism. People are fed up. He and his party are toxicated with grandiose dreams of Ottoman Empire like power. That empire bankrupted and replaced with a modern nation in 1923.
Those are tear gas cartridges on the ground...
thanks for the clarification Orhan. by underused, i meant in a routine noncongregational sort of way but it was also pretty cold when i was visiting. of course my random sampling is trivial compared to what is really at stake.
we have seen the failure of Occupy in the US. we also saw the success of the Arab Spring....in bringing to the foreground the governance of an islamic-paty singularism (the anecdote is of someone climbing up the ladder and then toppling the ladder off).
do you expect an escalation? do you think the stage is set for a successful political encroachment from the side of the protestors or will the scene be limited to skirmishes?
dam Erdoğan, you done effed this one up.
THE GEZI PARK OCCUPATION: CONFRONTING AUTHORITARIAN NEOLIBERALISM
A report from Gezi Park Domus/Pelin Tan
Protesters can refuge in this apartment
Unit #6
I was in Besiktas and Taksim today. Taksim is like a total war zone with windows smashed, cars turned upside down, beer cans all over the streets..All the buildings have anti-Tayyip graffitis. There are thousands of people in Taksim right now and they aren't going anywhere.
Tayyip Erdogan is now mostly a dictator in the world's eye. What a fantastic fall from a tree he was trying to bulldoze...
The Right to the City Movement and the Turkish Summer Jadaliyya / Jay Cassano
The protests spread to the other cities: http://www.cnnturk.com/2013/turkiye/06/01/tum.turkiye.gezi.icin.ayakta/710287.0/index.html
"And then there is the media. Turkey's mainstream media has become the laughing stock of the country. While Istanbul was burning with tear gas, Turkish TV channels were busy broadcasting documentaries, cooking shows or soap operas. The Saturday edition of the pro-government major daily Sabah has not mentioned the events. The government imposed a blackout and the widespread self-censorship further discredited the mainstream media in the eyes of the Turkish public, which turned to international media outlets or to social media to follow the events on their streets. Indeed, one clear winner has been social media. Many Turks rushed to Twitter and the like to witness the rallies in real time. According to a study conducted by NYU's Social Media and Political Participation Laboratory, the social media response to and the role of social media in the protests has been phenomenal. Within a window of 24 hours, at least 2 million tweets mentioning hashtags related to the protest, have been posted. Even after midnight on Friday, more than 3,000 tweets about the protest were published every minute."
From: "Erdogan's dilemma" FP/Foreign Policy/Sinan Ulgen
Erdogan at a damage control TV talk show last night: "twitter and facebook.., nuisances."
you want to hear something funny/sad...i don't know funnier and sadder for whom but here goes:
syria is asking its citizens not to visit turkey given the unsafe situation there
This video is kind of chilling in a sci-fi way. The future is definitely is here...
Anonymous - #opTurkey
also,
continuous live broadcasting...
http://halktvcanli.tumblr.com/
More live broadcast (in English).
http://rt.com/on-air/
I love it. So great to see this awakening all over the world.
Assad must be laughing his ass off. :))
This is the link to the live Halk TV channel which is one of the few honest channels that tell it like it is: http://halktvcanli.tumblr.com/
As of now, these important websites have been hacked!
http://tccb.gov.tr/ Turkish President
http://istanbul.gov.tr/ Governor of Istanbul
http://iem.gov.tr/ Istanbul Police Department
http://Akparti.org.tr/ AK Party Headquarters
Yes, Anonymous hacked them.
Here are some of Erdogan's legacy projects pushed to the people's throats.
CANAL ISTANBUL: CAN I PLAY WITH MADNESS? An ecological disaster.
Dror's Vision for HavvAda Wanna be schmoozer architects online to get on the dictator's good side. Related to Canal Istanbul.
Plans for giant mosque overlooking Istanbul stoke secularists' fears Another legacy project by Erdogan as if Istanbul needs his kitsch mosque on the most prominent hill.
He has absolutely no architectural and urban design consideration but he is after complete power machinery.
Letter of support from one of the Mr. Pink Floyds..\
A note from Roger - June 2, 2013
by Roger Waters The Wall (Notes) on Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 7:12pm
To all my friends in Turkey
I am with you! We are with you! You are so right to resist the forces of autocracy and repression. It doesn't matter who they are.
If I read the Internet right, in your case, you are resisting autocratic religious zealots.
Turkey is your country and we support you and yearn for your freedom, but also, you and your struggle are so important to the rest of the world.
Every time a man or woman or child takes to the streets, and stands up for human rights, for self determination, for democracy, for Mistress Liberty, the rest of the world is in debt.
We are not physically with you in the water cannon's fire, in the tear gas clouds, but we are with you in spirit.
We applaud your stand for we know it is not easy.
Your great country stands at the gateway between east and west. Constantinople is legend in the history of civilization. Your resistance today may well be a turning point between all of us and a return to the dark ages.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT YOU ARE DOING TODAY:
With love, and tears, and huge respect,
Roger Waters."
Thanks Roger...
And thanks for this too.
"If I read the Internet right, in your case, you are resisting autocratic religious zealots."
i'm not comfortable with that description. are you? autocratic ok fine... but religious zealot? is it fair? i'm being a spoiltsport but isn't that hysterionic?
I read that there are Islamists (ekh, forgive the westernized usage) amongst the protesters.
Erdogan is not Al Qaeda ... even if he is giving them free passage to infiltrate Syria. Or you think behind the cleancut secular look is a man who aches to grow a wild beard , wear ankle length thobes and run after ladies, harrassing them for not wearing the niqab?
"you are resisting autocratic religious zealots"
Yes maybe it is a bit blunt but he is considering the ultimate translation and the end result.
He is a musician. What he said was basically, like most, letting people on the ground, Turkish people, that they are not alone and the world supports them.
Do you like the music? I like the music.
"Careful With That Axe Eugene"
Perfect title as Turkey is waking up in early morning hours and some have been resisting all night. Very atmospheric...
I did consider linking the footage from Antonioni's film, Zabriskie Point with Pink Floyd music, but thought of people already tired of explosions of gas canisters and such, even though slow motion objects flying in the air is most peaceful and has a regenerative and cleansing meaning.
-----------------------------
What I really want to say from Los Angeles is that, through which, over and over, we see and participate in revolutionary stances and repurposing our political accumulations, these happen in the City itself... The ever crucial entity, the sidewalks, shelters, and the rest of the built environment.
This is all about architecture.. For me, this trumps it all. Inch by inch and street by street.
To those architectural firms from the US and Europe, who have been thinking and seeking friend of the regime positions and shopping mall opportunities in Istanbul :
Save yourselves some embarrassment. It ain't Dubai or China style bonanza land. Not anymore.. Stop. You gin fizz urbanists you...
http://turkeyconstructionindustry.com/the-mall-of-istanbul/
Zaha Hadid in handshake with Istanbul mayor Kadir Topbas (AKP) and her megalomaniac project for Kartal, 2005. Effectively proposing to bulldoze the existing fabric and dislocating thousands of families and factories where they work and replacing them with parametric crap.
This might be the beginning of the end? Save the embarrassment. City is not for grab. Achtung baby...
Studio Libeskind project in Istanbul. This might be just the beginning of the end? Save the embarrassment. City is not for grab. Achtung baby...
Actually these guys are not that big of a deal. They are not going to build Kartal project of Zaha or Libeskind will ever build anything significant. They are sort of decorative accessories. The real damage is done by newly corporate, family owned, backward companies and consortiums.
oh, i came upon this The Face of Urban Renewal and Preservation in Istanbul and that was back in 2011!
quoting:
Whether or not the leaders of Istanbul (and Turkey) are prepared, the country is on a precipice. The desire for expression is embodied in the daily protests we witnessed in Istanbul-against the recent government imprisonment of journalists for example. Architecture and urban planning will be key sites of contestation, manifesting the angst of a population in transition.
it is excellent that turks feel that they possess their cities.
sadly, in my place, people are somewhere at a loss. its as if a city happens all around and between them and they have no say in the matter. its an urban malaise to sink into the murk of corrupted and corrupting circumstance and to feel that the city is not for you. we are so inept and flaccid running after personal gain paying no heed to the disasterous consequences. the lebanese shoreline has largely been confiscated from the public and distributed to feudal lords, their family and friends and the politicians associated to them to open up beachclub enterprises that care neither for ecology nor for social access . imagine, your town is right next to the sea and you have to pay an inordinate sum to access the sea. that is, if its not situated next to a open sewer stream flowing into the sea. horrible. . the city centre was gentrified after its destruction- it is bland, boring and for rich arabs smoking nargileh. its a huge open mall of shisha smokers. its sad. we are only left with bitter irony and petty hatreds. don't let that happen to you, this combination of liberal antisocial capitalism, confessional/ religious feudalism, deeprooted corruption and, worse, apathy/ societal ineptitude. .
There is, of course, an economic beast underneath of it all...
http://www.meforum.org/3522/turkish-spring-economics
Exhibit 4: Turkish short-term external debt
As the protesters started an organized effort on social media to boycott companies with ties to the government, Garanti Bank lost 13% of it's shares in a single day.
Istanbul is the trending city on Open Urban: http://openurban.com/index.php/Istanbul
Orhan, did you see that NPR interviewed protesters today, and one of them turned out to be an architect! She spoke forcefully, too! It was great!
Even back then, I think ZH knew it wasn't going to happen...
Gezi Parkı: The First Public Park in the Ottoman Empire. By Elif Özgen/Open Urban
I love that the Turks are fighting back against this alliance of big business and government.
Zaha's project is unbelievable! Just shows you that (most) any architect will go for it if given the opportunity. It's also interesting how people identify with cities that are lovable, that one can attach themselves and thier identity too. This is something that goes woefully under studied, probably becasue like the concept of beauty, it will always resist quantification. This should never be a reason to avoid the debate though. Life's real beauty is what can't be captured on a graph or in an algorythem, allthough we being human will always try. I guess it's about balance, and these young Turks are helping to maintain some equilibrium.
Love Turkey!
In Solidarity with Istanbul / Reading Marx's Capital with David Harvey
'Turkey needs time to change' Deutsche Welle / Germany
Turkey: ‘Occupy Gezi’ -- Istanbul’s red-green uprising; Right to the City movement and the Turkish summer -By I. Zekeriya Ayman for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Who are these people in Gezi Park? - Kim bu Gezi Parkı'ndakiler?
(with English subtitles)
Gezi Parki Philharmonic:
http://youtu.be/Pwj-seRPe30
Thank you Paradox that is beautiful.
New word in English: "chapulling"
usage example: "I'm neither rightist nor leftist, I am a chapuller."
More muzik.
Chapular are proving to be very creative, tasteful with the participation of freedom loving people. I am glad Turkey has millions of them.
What are they drumming about you might ask. They are protesting a popular Turkish News organization.
"Satilmis HaberTurk" = "Sold out HaberTurk"
--------------------
Before we keep posting more, I would like to thank few news sources, photographers I have been collaborating with (If I did, I am sorry to have missed some of you) :
My cousins friends in Istanbul and Izmir, cousin Emel abla (who messaged me on facebook last Thursday at midnight as I was writing this news post, saying, "this is getting bigger , time to go to Taksim" and left. 8 hours later after going through barricades check points and pepper sprays, her next message was from the uprising. She is in her 60's and one of the best city guides of Istanbul.)
I would like to thank my colleagues: #occupygezi, halktv, Cem Engin, Sevin Yildiz, Kurt Dillon, Arkitera, Huseyin Yanar, indirectly to Vasif Kortun, Guvenc Ozel, tammuz, paradox and other friends, news sources whose links and my own, I have been carrying here.
Lastly but not leastly, to Turkish people who showed to the world that liberties, urbanism, environment, architecture and politics matter big time.
Full-Page Ad Inspired By Turkish Protests Is One Of Indiegogo's Fastest Campaigns Ever
Orhan whats good for you is good for us and Morsi...sorry, i mean Erdogan and his party are neither good for you nor for us in the larger levantine region.
a thought: within the bounds of the islamic sharia system, what happens to the theif who steals the belongings of others? and if erdogan were to be non-hypocritical in the application of the sharia, should he not submit himself to the retributive measures stipulated thereby?
i start to think, none of this matters.
what can't be captured on a graph or in an algorythem
Actually...
Beyond beautiful with grace. Meet young (and old) Turks.
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