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Turkish Triangle HARVARD DESIGN SCHOOL | AGA KHAN PROGRAM | MEDINA Abstract Every classification of Turkish cities singles out three major urban centers while relegating the rest to the status of secondary cities. Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir have been the major poles of growth and development in Turkey since the Republic was formed in 1922. Despite a very strongly centralized system of planning and re-distributive politics that favored agriculture and industrialization in rural areas and secondary cities, these three cities have maintained a rapid pace of growth and a polarity that has defied expectations and controls. The metropolis, the capital, and the port respectively have also grown to organize the regions and secondary cities around them and to affect there growth and development. To be sure, these three cities have followed very different paths. From a fire that annihilated its business center, Izmir was quickly rebuilt to become the port of the Anatolian countryside and the link to Europe. Istanbul lost much of its imperial glories but recapitulated from about 1 million after WWII to become the biggest city in Europe today. Ankara moved from being an administrative and planned center to becoming an educational hub and regional pole. The weakening of the centralized planning system, the disintegration of the Soviet bloc and the rise of Turkic states, and the new dynamics in the Middle East promise to exaggerate the Turkish urban polarity in significant ways. The conference aims to examine the irresistible rise of these three main urban centers in Turkey and their roles in organization the territory and its future reorganization. Through the examination of the recent history of these three cities by urban historians, sociologists, economists, and architects, the conference aims to shed light on several questions such as: 1. How did these cities with different national roles and characters emerge and adjust themselves to each other and to the nation state? 2. What are the recent regional changes that are affecting this internal triangle and how is the polarity reoriented towards other regions and centers outside the national territory? 3. To what extent have the differences between these three cities been shaped by national planning? 4. How have these differences manifest themselves in the planning and architecture of these cities? The conference aims to address these issues with the participation
of internationally renowned urbanites, scholars, and designers |
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