Modern challenges for an Ancient Land of Marvels
FOR all the hype about Istanbul rapidly
metamorphosing into a slick European Union city, it is an edgy Eurasian metropolis marked by ghettos of both types — prosperous pockets of surging westernity and decrepit
districts of growing conservatism .
I have read and article recently published by in the Hindu magazine the author says that he lived for nearly 2 years. During those fortnight-long stays, he says that only soaked in the mystique of the megapolis but also attended art events, architecture seminars, roamed obscure, run-down neighbourhoods as well as swanky new ones and interviewed Turkish architects, planners, artists and activists about Istanbul’s changes and
challenges. Each time,he could not help but be struck by the sharp contrasts and tensions in this fabled city and by the uncanny similarity of its infrastructural challenges to those of Indian cities such as Mumbai.
“Istanbul is a great city but a chaotic place,” Prof Ipek Akpinar, head of architecture at the Istanbul Technical University, said on my first visit. Her words brought to mind our own Charles Correa, who has often proclaimed that “Mumbai is a great city but a terrible place.” According to Akpinar, “Istanbul, more and more, is a city of psychological and physical divides. If its governors and planners don’t watch out, they might find it on the road to Sao Paolo.” I soon saw what the lady meant.
But as an Indian i feel that Mumbai is more chaotic, but comparatively less tense than Istanbul.
Exploring the city with a couple of local architect/activist-friends, I found a world of difference between the city’s old blue-collar districts of Zeytinburnu and Sultanbeyli and new white-collar districts of Levent and Buyukdere Avenue. Many of the houses and workshops in the former are languishing, while more and more New Age skyscrapers are springing up in the other two. Levent is the corporate abode of the “White Turks”, Akpinar’s nickname for the local pinstriped workforce. Buyukdere, where old warehouses are giving way to new towers, is reminiscent of Mumbai’s erstwhile mill district.
He explains in length about the congested Sultanbeyli as politically charged and elobrates that it houses as does thousands of unemployed Kurdish refugees and impoverished new settlers from Eastern Anatolian and Black Sea villages, the district has its share of slumlords, factional leaders and scuffles.and goes on to say that Zeytinburnu is rather better organised and a bit less squalid, but its residents are mostly as conservative.
Also he is surprised about the lifestyle of the Istanbullus shopping at the trendy boutiques and dining at the glamorous bistros of Nisantasi or Istiklal Caddesi, the heart of hip Istanbul.and wonders about the richness of the Istanbullus. .
“The gulf between Istanbul’s rich and its poor is wider than ever before,” says urban planner Omur Barkul, “and it will continue to widen because the development of new, up-market business and residential districts is taking precedence over the dire housing and infrastructural needs of the city’s bursting new shanty-towns and crumbling old lower-class areas.”
But experts such as Barkul and Akpinar and ordinary Istanbullus such as Salem see a ray of hope in the city’s current mayor, Kadir Topbas, a practising architect. One of the first things he did was to set up a special unit of 400 architects and planners and engineers to streamline urban planning. Along with the national government, this unit has already documented the problem areas and succeeded in obtaining grants from the EU and the UN for some damage control and development projects.
These are the experiences of the author who have visited istanbul recently. TO SAY THIS ISTANBUL IN HIS VIEW.