University of Cincinnati

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:___________________ I, _________________________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in: It is entitled: This work and its defense approved by: Chair: _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ Urban [Dis]order? Reinventing Urban Space Case of Istanbul, Turkey A Thesis submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Community Planning in the School of Planning of the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning 2 0 0 6 By Poonam Narkar Bachelor in Architecture (Mumbai University, India) Committee: Chair: Menelaos Triantafillou, MLA Faculty: Mahyar Arefi, PhD David Edelman, PhD ABSTRACT A city comprises of its varied spaces and its people that inhabit these spaces and ascribe meaning to them. While there are those urban spaces that are formally defined and used in a specified order, there are also those urban spaces that are formed as a result of spatial practices, through self-organization of individuals and groups of people and their practices of daily life. There are innumerable such places that people transform to fit their own social, cultural, recreational, economic or political needs. I call these spaces, that spontaneously ‘occur’ as a result of people’s mediation, as “informal spaces” since they do not follow the norms of formally defined spaces. As people reshape and reinterpret urban space, they ascribe it a different meaning, consequently “reinventing” urban space. The study aims to first acknowledge the phenomenon of informal spaces in cities and to identify them, to understand how urban space is used by people in different ways, for what purposes and for what reasons, by way of occupancy and appropriation. The thesis constructs a theoretical base for study of informal spaces to later derive a connection between this theoretical understanding and the practical process of planning. The explorations in informal spaces are carried out through different examples in the city of Istanbul, but for the purpose of this study six examples are chosen as case studies – highway parks, Galata Bridge, space under vehicular flyover bridges, underpasses, Taksim Square and Istiklal Street. The case study mainly comprises of qualitative data collected through, personal observations along with photographic and video documentation of events, literature study and interviews with professional planners, faculty of School of Architecture and Planning at Istanbul Technical University and students. Analysis of the six case studies brings forth the socio-cultural and socio-economic implications of informal spaces in Istanbul and establishes the value of these spaces in the life of people. Finally, I develop taxonomy of informal spaces that can be conceptually applied to other cities showing similar urban conditions. 2 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I take this opportunity to express special gratitude to Prof. Menelaos Triantafillou, for his constant guidance, mentoring and motivation not just during the course of this thesis but during my entire study at the School of Planning. I would also like to thank my other committee members, Dr. Mahyar Arefi for his timely guidance and critique and for pushing me to perform to the best of my abilities and Dr. David Edelman, also for giving me the opportunity to study in Istanbul in fall 2005. I thank everyone in Istanbul who made my stay in the city a memorable experience and for helping me in my study, but I especially thank Prof. Handan Türkoğlu for guiding me and providing valuable learning opportunities in Istanbul. I thank my friend and classmate at School of Planning, UC, Sinem Metin; also an Istanbullu, who not only made the tiring hours of work lighter with her cheerful disposition, but also helped me on many occasions with information about Istanbul and translating Turkish text in English. I would like to thank my friends in Cincinnati, Vidhya, Ruchi, Jignesh, Shrikant, Ravi, Gordie, Eric, Duygü and Niti, for making the Cincinnati experience so enjoyable and not letting me feel the pinch of being away from my family. I am very grateful to my parents and sister in India, who made it possible for me to study at the University of Cincinnati and always encouraged me to do my best. Finally, special thanks to my husband Ram, who in spite of being in another city, was always around for me whenever I needed him, constantly providing motivation and helping me to stay focused and cheering me up in my low phases. Poonam Narkar 4 PROLOGUE My interest in the study of cities can be credited to my experience of growing up in a megalopolis like Bombay, India. Bombay is unique in the way different worlds exist together everyday. The diversity and the complexity of its mechanism always intrigued me. Twenty-five years of my life, before I came to the United States, I have been a part of this fast paced, ever-growing monster of a city that operates relentlessly 24/7, so much so that despite crises, every time the city has bounced back in action after a momentary pause. What keeps the city going on is actually its people and their spirit of survival which becomes manifest in more ways than one, through the events, activities, places and the everyday life of the city. Among the various aspects of urban studies, public places are of special interest to me because they are a reflection of the social and cultural life of a city. But living in Bombay, I have seen and experienced public places that do not seem to fit any conventional idea of a public place. The genesis of this thesis lies in the paper I had written for a course on “Concepts of Place and Image” in spring 2005, with Prof. Mahyar Arefi, where I explored the idea of “alternative public places” through the suburban commuter trains of Bombay that delved into the process of transformation of a transport facility into a public place by the millions of people who travel in it everyday. There are innumerable such places in the city that people transform to fit their own social, cultural, recreational, economic or political needs. I believe that every city has its share of these spaces, which I call “informal” spaces, since they do not follow the norms of formally defined spaces. These spaces spontaneously ‘occur’ at different venues in the city as a result of people’s mediation. I find this an interesting phenomenon where the physical space of the city is transformed through an unplanned and informal process, hence I decided to explore it further in my master’s thesis. Very soon in September 2005, I had the opportunity to travel to Istanbul, Turkey for 15 weeks, on a study abroad program. Istanbul presented to me a striking similarity with Bombay in the organization (or disorganization?) of its structure and in the way the urban space is used. Like Bombay, Istanbul too is a fast growing and rapidly urbanizing city with a high population density. As intriguing is its historic evolution, the present urban 5 conditions are equally overwhelming. The city is marked with diversity in the way the traditional and the modern co-exist, both as people and as places. One of the distinctive characteristics of the city is the disorder in its urban order that is manifest through the innumerable spontaneously occurring informal spaces in the city. The informality is an intrinsic part of the urban environment, almost like a way of life. My stay in Istanbul provided me a wonderful opportunity to closely experience the urban life and culture and offered a lot of scope for my research on informal spaces. I decided to take Istanbul as a case study for my thesis to explore the notion of informal spaces through observations and personal experience. This thesis is thus a study of informal spaces that are formed by people’s interventions in the urban space as they reshape and reinterpret it to fit their needs. I call this process “reinventing” urban space because the existing physical space of the city acquires a different meaning through the way it is used. Following is a discussion on the process of reinvention of urban space, explored through different examples in the city of Istanbul. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 02 Acknowledgements 04 Prologue 05 Table of contents 07 List of figures 09 List of Tables 11 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Formal and Informal space 12 1.2 Aim of Thesis 15 Chapter 2: Space & Spatiality, Public Space and Practices of everyday life – an overview of Literature 2.1 Overview of literature 17 2.2 Discourse on space 20 2.2.1 Conceived, perceived and lived space 2.2.2 Third space 2.2.3 Social production and social construction 2.2.4 Strategies and Tactics 2.2.5 Everyday spaces 2.2.6 Loose-fit spaces 2.3 Right to Space 28 2.4 Public nature of public space 30 2.5 Reinventing urban space through spatial practices 31 and spatial rights 2.6 In a nutshell 32 2.7 Identifying informal spaces in cities 32 7 Chapter 3: Research method 34 Chapter 4: Case Studies 4.1 Highway parks 37 4.2 Galata Bridge 45 4.3 Space under Flyover Bridge at Besiktas 50 4.4 Underpasses at Eminönü and Karaköy 54 4.5 Taksim Square 56 4.6 Istiklal Street 61 4.7 Other informal spaces in Istanbul 68 Chapter 5: Findings and Analysis 69 Chapter 6: Conclusions 6.1 Conclusions 80 6.2 Taxonomy of Informal spaces 83 6.3 Thoughts 85 Bibliography 87 8 LIST OF FIGURES Fig 1 Formal space vs. Informal space 11 Fig 2 Space vs.

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