Inceoğlu,I., Akpinar, I., Koknar, ABS., “The Making of a Public Space: (re)reading Antakya”, International GAZIMAGOSA Symposium by EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN UNIVERSITY, 12-16.04.2004; Medi3ology: momentum, metamorphosis, manifesto, U.Ulaş Dağlı, N.Doratlı, Ş.Önal Hoşkaya, P.Uluçay (eds), EmuPress,GaziMağusa, 2004, pp.381-387.

THE MAKING OF A PUBLIC SPACE: (RE)READING ANTAKYA Mine Inceoğlu Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul/Turkey Ipek Yada Akpınar Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul/Turkey A.Burcu Serdar Kőknar Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul/Turkey

ABSTRACT:

Antakya, a major Roman city in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Turkey, with its a multi-faith and multi-linguistic social structure has been the focus of our study. Focusing on the urban pattern and urban life of Antakya via architectural proposals by the third year students at ITU, our study aims at investigating the traditional architecture and urbanism through a series of theoretical notions trying to discover its potential for developing new architectural and urban solutions amongst the historical layers, interpreting the urban identity and how to possibly to sustain it. New architectural approaches may be helpful to (re)generate the ancient city and (re)discover its inter-faces, and, in particular, may shed light to the urban interactive features. KEY WORDS: Public space - Mediterranean urban pattern - accessibility - interfaces

“Space can no longer be treated as the dead, the fixed, the undialectical, the immobile” Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: selected writings

Today, historical cities of the Eastern Mediterranean region face new socio-

economic challenges under the influences of globalisation. Offering a series of

spatial images, the city provides access to deeper underlying questions about

society. The compact urban structure of the Mediterranean city is the result of

different overlapping historical eras. In other words, the physical characters of the

historical eras had an important influence on the character of urban development.

As a result, the Mediterranean city can be seen as an amalgam of objects of

cultural productions, providing an interesting topic for research.

Located on the Eastern Mediterranean region of Turkey, a major Roman city

Antakya (Antioche/Antiocheia), with its multi-faith and multi-linguistic structure is

the focus of our study (figure 1). Focusing on the urban pattern and urban life of

Antakya via architectural proposals by the third year students at ITU, our study

aims at investigating the traditional architecture and urbanism through a series of

architectural-urban and cultural notions to discover its potential for developing new

architectural and urban solutions amongst the historical layers, interpreting the

urban identity and how to sustain it. At Antakya, students revealed architectural

and urban issues in a historical built environment: How can an architect read,

understand and contribute to the development of the everyday life in an historical

city? To what extent can an architect interfere in the city whilst preserving the

urban identity, cooperating with the community in particular? Our study, first of all,

introduces the theoretical framework. Secondly, focusing on the urban and social

structure of Antakya, the study presents the architectural projects conducted by

the third year students.

New architectural approaches may help to (re)generate the ancient city and

(re)discover its inter-faces, and, in particular, may shed light to the urban

interactive features. Analysing various design approaches can contribute to the

studies of urban development of historical cities in general. Experiencing and

reading the city may unveil its many layers accumulated through ages.

Figure 1. Antakya, the aerial view

1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Urban space has become an interesting topic of research for scholars in the social

and cultural fields. The making of urban space invites theoretical consideration of

the conditions and effects of the signifying practices, discourses and images that

give it a legible form. In its broader description, the form of the city is determined

by its image. Lynch defines imageability as “that quality in a physical object which

gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer”

(Lynch,1960:9,4). In the light of imageability, Lynch (1980:131-150) has defined

the interactive relation between the observer and the sense of a settlement,

depending on a series of notions - the spatial form, quality, culture, nature,

context, experience, the aim of the observer - making the perceptive sense more

readable. In this framework, Lynch adds aspects of sense as identity, formal

structure, congruence, transparency, legibility, significance and unfoldingness, that

have been investigated by our students before projecting their proposals in

Antakya.

A will to perceive and understand the environment enables one to interact with the

environment. This is not a one way reaction: it is an interaction. This interactive

relation transforms the place into ‘interface’. Within the urban life as a continuing

process, the ‘accessibility’ becomes a keyword for the continuity of the life actions.

What are the means of accessibility in today’s cities? The means have changed,

spaces themselves have turned into interfaces for communication, contributing to

the everyday life. In this context, Lynch (1984) describes the accessibility in the

city as the access to other people, activities, supplies, places, and information.

Either at a micro level or macro level, accessibility has a great effect on the

formation of cities and on the urban development. It is possible to perceive the

interfaces as the means for accessibility. How can a ‘space’ become an interface

within the city? Interfaces are architectural/urban tools to communicate with the

city, connecting the urban life and the man. During the pace of the urban life, one

can find a moment in time for thinking, relaxing, reacting or moving from where

he/she is. Consciously or unconsciously, he/she experiences the interaction

between life and city. Accordingly, the scale of this interaction varies, as relation

between the man and the environment changes. The dynamism of the intersection

of the inner and outer spaces, the gates, the thresholds and the spaces in-

between make the urban life liveable/habitable. In short, the medium for the

experience is the ‘space’ as an interface. In Antakya, the social and cultural

structure has been visualised via inter-faces - inter courtyards, in terms of

transition from the public towards the semi-public/semi-private and the private. Yet

even the clearest and most powerful urban images and aspects evoke different

readings, recalling Lefebvre’s (1991:17) position: “to what extent may a space be

read or decoded?” He writes that “space is not simply the parameter or stage of

social relations and actions, rather it is operative in the assembly of these” (1991).

The ever-increasing complexity of social relations on urban and regional scale

evoke for a broader reading of the urban space. (Re)reading the city, decoding the

city may shed light to its spatiality, providing clues for new architectural

approaches.

2. ANTAKYA AND STUDENTS’ PROPOSALS As an ancient Mediterranean imperial city, Antakya has had six eras of civilisation,

each resting on the ruins of the previous one: initially a Roman city, secondly a

Seljuki city, thirdly the Ottoman city, spontaneously developed on an Islamic

pattern; fourthly the French occupation, fifthly, Antakya the republican, and finally

Antakya as part of the Turkish republic. In this context, Antakya witnessed the

emergence of both Christianity and Islam. Despite its location on the commercial

main roads, Antakya lost its former importance during the reign of the Seljuks and

the Ottomans. In the republican period, the urban dynamics in Antakya with its

urban context and architecture, and art in the Mediterranean region can be

summarised as migration in and out of the centre, the effects of globalisation on

the local culture, and as a result, the socio-economic transformation.

For the social structure, Morley and Robins have written on the diversity and

cultural richness of the cosmopolitan imperial cities (Morley and Robins,1995). The

Ottoman Empire exemplifies this with a “multi-ethnic character throughout its

existence” (Mango:1999:7). In this cosmopolitan coexistence, “Ottoman law and

practice classified people by their religion. The Muslims were thus treated as a

single community” (Mango:1999:8). Millets (communities - ethnic religious groups)

with their mahalle (neighbourhood) and institutions, had taken their place in the

urban pattern of the Ottomans city Antakya, with its population composed of

Alevis, Sunnis, Protestants, Catholics and Armenians, exemplifies this. In the city,

ethnic religious and cultural heterogeneity has been coupled with social and

spatial differences. In this respect, Antakya can be defined what Oncu and

Weyland (1997:2) recall an other city within the context of globalisation. Antakya,

illustrating the impasses and paradoxes of contemporary developments, has been

a unique space of cohabitation: the social, cultural and religious boundaries

between sub-groups are constituted within a multitude of networks - which serve

as the locus of identification and belonging, as well as a source of power and

legitimation (Oncu and Weyland, 1997:2). In this context, Antakya can also be

described as a “female city” like Barcelona and Paris, with its cultural and

cosmopolitan diversity (Kilicbay,1993). The city of Antakya has been, in Lefebvre’s

words, not an “abstract” space like Ankara or Madrid, but an “absolute space” like

Istanbul (Lefebvre,1991:36-40). In short, Antakya has represented what Kostof

calls the ville spontanėe (Kostof, 1999:43-44).

The ville spontanėe of the Eastern Mediterranean region often consists of back

alleys, winding streets, cul-de-sacs, and private inner courtyards. It is composed of

a series of mahalles including ten or fifteen streets at most - sometimes grouped

around a square, a mosque, one or two public fountains, a public bath, a religious

school and a few shops (Lapidus,1967:3). In this context, Leontidou (1990) claims

that popular spontaneity and creativity had an important influence on the character

of urban development. Moreover, she mentions that Mediterranean cities were

characterised by anti-planning attitudes, which undermined functional land-use

separation and a “fragmented, disorderly urban fabric” (Leontidou,1993:951-954).

Similarly, Aksoy and Robins (1994:58) refer to the fundamentality of such

“disorder” in the urban culture of Mediterranean cities. Although the spontaneous

Ottoman urban pattern with its specific inner order has been dominant on the

contemporary urban pattern, Antakya has partially preserved the features of the

Roman era, in terms of urban axes and urban grid structure, in particular, in the

old city, around the Kurtulus street. In Antakya, the spatial structure, adopted from

the Ottoman administrative structure, was based neither on income nor on social

status. The determinants of spatial differentiation were religious and ethnic

(İnalcık,1973:224-248). Antakya, as other traditional Mediterranean cities, has built

up its identity through the reuse and modification of the previous urban remains. In

this respect, the old city core (Medina) is also the result of the coexistence and

work of different ethnic and religious groups with their heritage of civic and

religious institutions, typologies, building materials and techniques. The urban

structure of Antakya has an inner ‘order’ with its courtyards both in the private (old

stone houses), the semi private/semi public (Chamber of Architects, recently

renovated Savon Hotel) and the public (the old bazaar and its inner streets as well

as streets, religious buildings such as catholic, protestant churches, mosques).

Significant transition from the public towards the private through a series of notions

(as accessibility, legibility, identity, formal structure, congruence, transparency,

legibility, significance, and unfoldingness) has been visualised in the courtyards in

particular, where the climate has constituted a major factor in their formation

(figure 2). However, the new Antakya brings forward contrasting images with the

powerful character of the old Antakya. Despite the continuity of traditional urban

pattern, the new urban structure has lost the complex identity of the Mediterranean

city due to the lack of maintenance in historical urban sectors, the migration in and

out the city and the introduction of new mediocre buildings.

As a former imperial centre, Antakya has been at the core of commercial activities

in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East regions – relations with Syria, in

particular, exemplify this. In this context, the bazaar activities reflect a kind of

otherworldliness – the exoticism of the unknown East. The traditional bazaars

have protected their magical aspects of enchantment as sites of intoxication and

desire (figure 2). In this context, the kitchen culture has been a primary source of

social richness of Antakya.

Figure 2. The courtyard and the bazaar. Similarly to the liveliness of the commercial activities, the urban vivacity of the

urban life/everyday life has been one of the most important characteristics of

Antakya. Inhabitants enjoy the outdoors, in particular, experience the streets

during days and nights… Moreover, both men and women actively participate to

the social, sportive and cultural activities. Today, inhabitants jog at 6:30 in the

morning in the park designed and implemented during the French occupation. In

the early republican era, similarly to the Youth Park in Ankara and Prost’s Gezi

Park in Istanbul, the Antakya Park had been a medium in the radical social change

of an Islamic eastern community towards a secular society, where women and

men finally became equal. Accordingly, the park and its sportive and cultural

activities have continued to create spaces in which women have been dominantly

visible and given value in society. The Antakya Park might be seen as simply the

application of a Western model – but, in the context of Turkish society the new

open space has carried a different significance: the park has been a direct attempt

to change the traditional daily life in an Anatolian town (Akpınar, 2003). In this

context, students have questioned both the public sphere (public having a place in

the politics) and the public space (the visualisation of the administrative and

legislative term of public in the urban arena). The concept of public space

introduces the notion of liberal movement, in other words, freedom of movement

into the urban space; it has also a connotation of multi-purpose use of the space

that has been reflected into the architectural design of students.

To sum up, as it has become difficult to name, map, and analyse the

contemporary city, the studio set up a critical investigation in Antakya through

Lynch’s architectural and urban notions: focusing on urban space and its inter-

faces and urban life, students have projected a city museum on two different sites.

The first site is located in the commercial area at the edge of the old Antakya; and

the existing museum area is chosen as the second site along the shores of the Asi

River. The river passes through the city dividing it into two parts, the old and the

new (figure 3) (table1a, table 1b).

Figure 3. The Asi River dividing the city into two parts.

Nursen Ozer

. history . narrow streets to wide courtyards . complexity . light . . variety of cultures-languages-religions . focus points .

. meeting places in the urban pattern . inviting façades . illuminated narrow passages . . variations of the levels .

Ulaş Solakoğlu

. river . narrow complex streets . food . mosaics . introverty . new-old, complexity-order .

. relationships between the new and the old. access through the river . a square at the entrance . . looking at the river from the museum. transparency

Ali Şimşek

. preserved urban identity . from complexity to order – connecting two sides of the river . . narrow streets – courtyards – fountains . variations of living cultures .

. layering . lives in different layers . using variety of topographic levels . spatial flow from complexity to order .

Table 1a. examples of students’ projects

Sevince Bayrak

. social life . togetherness of city and man . living the city - living in the city . . house – courtyard - street- han (traditional hotel) . flow of public space to private space .

. fragmentation of compressed buildings . heightened from the ground . connecting via streets . multiplying the public spaces by shaded ground level . continuity of social life as the main urban

pattern . . perspectives of the city, the park, the old and the new .

Table 1b. examples of students’ projects

Table 1a and Table 1b illustrate students’ design proposals. In the light of Lynch’s

notions – (accessibility, imageability, identity, formal structure, congruence,

transparency, legibility, significance and unfoldingness), the first line present

students’ key words based on their individual reading the urban and social

structure as an experimental study rather than a complete research. The second

line indicates the main ideas of the proposals, mainly concentrated on the primary

urban features of Antakya - continuity of urban identity as well as urban pattern,

relations with the existing topography, accessibility of the city museum. In these

projects, the continuity of the public space (the traditional bazaars in the first site

and the park in the former museum area) towards the museum has played a major

role in the formation of the proposals. In this respect, the position/orientation of

buildings, spatial form(s), relations between inside and outside of the projects have

constituted an inter-face between man and Antakya. In short, proposals have

reflected the continuity of the existing dynamic social life, have visualised the

urban diversity, and have (re)shaped the urban identity.

Discovering, analysing and understanding the interfaces - one of the means of the

city communication – has regenerated contribution to urban life. On the one hand,

experiencing the spatial features of Antakya has provided a holistic way of

engaging with the city. On the other hand, reading the codified systems of the city

has unveiled urban layers. Having combined experiencing and reading the city,

student proposals have achieved an alternative critical representation of the

changed urban condition at Antakya. In this context, proposals. re-interpreting the

urban aspects of Antakya - existing courtyards, the streets - have transformed the

mediocre new environment into liveable spaces, and contributed to the built

environment in terms of sustainability.

References from journals

Aksoy, A., Robins, K. 1994. “Istanbul Between Civilisation and Discontent,” New perspective on Turkey. Spring, pp.57-74.

Leontidou, L., 1993. “Postmodernism and the City: Mediterranean Versions,” Urban Studies, issue 30, June, pp.951-954.

References from books

Inalcık, H. 1998. “The Islamic City,” Essays in Ottoman History. Istanbul: Eren, 247-271

Kılıçbay, MA., 1993. Şehirler ve Kentler. Ankara: Gece

Lapidus, I. 1967. Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University press.

Lefebvre, H., 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell

Leontidou, L., 1990. The Mediterranean City in Transition: Social and Urban Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lynch, K. 1984. Good City Form. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Lynch, K., 1960. The Image of The City. Mass. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Mango, A., 1999. Atatürk. London: John Murray

Morley, D., Robins, K., 1995. Spaces of Identity, Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries. London: Routlegde.

Öncu, A., Weyland, P., 1997. Space, Culture and Power. eds. London: Zed Books.

References from other sources

Akpınar, I. 2003. The Rebuilding of Istanbul after the Plan of Henri Prost, 1937-1960: from secularisation to Turkish modernisation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. UCL-Bartlett School of Graduate Studies.

Köknar, ABS., 2001. Mekansal Arayüzlerin Kente ve Yaşama Katılımları Üzerine Bir Inceleme. Unpublished Master thesis, ITU Institute of Science and Technology.

Communication address, phone / fax number and e-mail

Mine Inceoğlu, Professor, ph.d. ITU Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture taskisla-taksim, 80191İstanbul, Turkey Phone: 0212 293 13 00 (22 72, 23 43) Fax: 0212 251 48 95 E-mail: inceoglu@doruk.net.tr Ipek Yada Akpınar, Assistant professor, ph.d. ITU Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture taskisla-taksim, 80191İstanbul, Turkey Phone: 0212 293 13 00 (22 72, 23 43) Fax: 0212 251 48 95 E-mail: akpinari@itu.edu.tr A. Burcu Serdar Köknar, Ph.d. candidate ITU Faculty of Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture taskisla-taksim, 80191İstanbul, Turkey E-mail: abskoknar@yahoo.com