Paradise (un)found : Identity, Belonging and World Heritage in Istanbul's Historic Urban Fabric

Ref.: 261
Key theme: 03 Visual integrity of historic urban landscapes
Date of reception: 30/10/2008

AUTHORS (*Main author)

SALOOJEE, Ozayr * (United States of America) - Univ. of Minnesota

ABSTRACT

The Nobel prize winning Turkish author, Orhan Pamuk, observed in his book Istanbul: Memories of the City, that all Istanbullus live with a constant state of huzun, which is a Turkish word that translates as a kind of `communal melancholia'; a melancholia that in part is due to the constant presence of the ruined works of a great past civilization in the streets that surround the inhabitants of this great city. Pamuk writes that: "These are nothing like the remains of great empires to be seen in western cities, preserved like museums of history and proudly displayed... the people of Istanbul carryon with their lives amid the ruins, and that... the present city can never again dream of rising to it's former heights of wealth, power and culture." This melancholia is not only a state of sadness, but a kind ofhonor ­ and in attempting to know it, one must describe the city of the Ottoman empire, and the way that this history is reflected in the cities landscapes and people. He continues by noting that "The huzun of Istanbul is not just the mood evoked by its music and Hanoi, The SocialistRepublic of Viet Nam, 5- 10 April 2009 poetry, it is a way of looking at life that implicates us all, not only a spiritual state of mind that is ultimately as life-affirming as it is negating."
This paper will explore how the intersection of architecture and culture (historic and contemporary) contribute to how a specific community perceives itself - and in this case, specifically within the cultural milieu of Istanbul. It will focus on Istanbul and how it's religious/secular cultural dichotomy, has lead to the generation of a `reverse' Orientalism - in the perception that `Islamic' communities have of themselves and how these attitudes shape the built environment, particularly with regard to issues of cultural and collective memory, ideas of place and space within the context of a city recognized for its world heritage sites. This paper will examine how architecture and urbanism - and the politics of perception at play with regard to historic preservation facilitate or deny identity and belonging - and the case of this presentation - with respect to Istanbul's modern `Islamic' identity. This inquiry speaks directly to issues of tradition and modernity, and how `ownership' of place is understood, both as a physical gesture (the built environment and constructed landscape) but also as a perceptual one in the manner in which we construct ideas ­ as well as policy at all levels, local, national and international - about our identity. Istanbul's contemporary desires to be simultaneously anchored in it's rich past yet fully engaged with a European global future is a perfect example of this; as we speak, Ottoman mosques are being repaired and renovated as essential components of the 2010 European City of Culture. With the rich culturo-historal backdrop of Hanoi as a setting, this paper hopes to provoke questions about how cultural identity is created within an historic urban framework ­ and the role that architecture plays in its facilitation or denial.

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