Tag: Istanbul’s Cultural Heritage Inventory

Turkey’s historic Emek theatre facing final curtain

Campaigners stage protest at plans to demolish historic venue to make way for a shopping and entertainment complex

Constanze Letsch Istanbul

guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 April 2013 21.00 BST

A woman makes a protest speech outside the former Emek cinema. Photograph: Karadeniz/Corbis

It is Turkey’s oldest and most prestigious cinema, an Istanbul landmark that dates back to the early days of Atatürk’s rule – and a centrepiece until recently of the city’s international film festival.

So plans to demolish the Emek theatre and turn the space into an entertainment and shopping venue have generated widespread disapproval – not least at the recent film festival, at which film directors, critics and residents came together in a passionate protest against the building project.

In 1924, the theatre opened its doors as part of the Cercle d’Orient complex, a listed art deco building designed in 1884 by Levantine architect Alexandre Vallaury. Despite massive public protest the building was leased to a private developer who plans to turn it into an entertainment and shopping complex. Demolition work started last week.

After a lengthy legal battle a local court approved the developer’s plans last December. The company announced plans to move the theatre to the fourth floor of the new building, but critics fear the Emek theatre will effectively be destroyed.

Azize Tan, director of the Istanbul film festival, thinks the demolition of the Emek theatre is a tragic mistake. “The theatre is a symbol for Turkish cinema that we need to protect,” she said. She said its closure in 2010 had had a negative impact on the festival. “Every big film festival has its flagship venue. The Emek theatre was ours for 28 years, and there is nothing to replace it with,” she said.

The closure of the cinema, which seats 875, also meant a substantial loss of capacity for the festival’s organisers. Since 1958, the cinema has been publicly owned and has provided the backdrop for small, courageous revolts: the first big public 1 May celebrations after the military coup of 1980 took place there, it housed leftwing concerts and did not shy away from screening Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ while religious groups protested outside.

“People in Istanbul have a very strong bond with the Emek theatre,” said Nil Kural, a journalist and member of the FIPRESCI jury of critics.

“We all discovered our love for films and cinema here.”

Many agree. Turkish film-maker Yüksel Aksu said the theatre had been the sole place of his cinematographic education. Addressing the Turkish government, he shouted: “If you cannot conserve this place, you will not call yourself a conservative. You will call yourself barbarian.”

The Emek theatre protests are a symbol for the right to decide over the fate of the city whose cultural and historical heritage is increasingly at stake. Many are critical of the unchecked urban development that is rapidly remaking Istanbul, and of ever-larger projects being forced on its residents without any public debate.

Only last week, the government approved a plan widely known as the “crazy project” to dig a canal parallel to the Bosphorus Straits. Meanwhile, whole historical neighbourhoods are being demolished to make room for profitable real estate ventures.

Last Sunday a peaceful demonstration against the demolition of the Emek theatre was dispersed with water cannons and teargas. Greek film director Costa-Gavras, who was among last week’s protesters, appealed in a letter to the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to save the theatre. “A prominent theatre, a cultural centre must not be destroyed. It’s like erasing a part of our memory and removing a significant place for the future. Therefore it would be a political, social and artistic failure,” he wrote.

Tan criticised the apparent lack of transparency. “Both the government and the developers refuse to reveal the entirety of the project. Nobody talks to us,” she said.

Nil Kural believes the discussion should not be based on profitability. “The Emek theatre is part of Istanbul’s cultural heritage and it should be preserved as such. Why should it have to be profitable? It needs to be supported. Would you close down a museum and turn it into a shopping centre if it doesn’t generate enough profit?” she said. She said she was still hopeful the theatre could be saved. “If the government intervenes now, we will be able to get our beloved Emek cinema back.”

via Turkey’s historic Emek theatre facing final curtain | World news | guardian.co.uk.

April 16, 2013
Istanbul’s heritage: Under attack | The Economist

How mosques and other new buildings may damage one of Europe’s finest cities

Dec 1st 2012 | ISTANBUL | from the print edition

Old sight under new threats

TURKEY’S first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, came to power in 1996 vowing to put a mosque in Istanbul’s main square. In the heart of the old European quarter, Taksim Square, with its monument of Ataturk and his revolutionaries, remains a symbol of the secular republic. Mr Erbakan was ousted a year later.

Now a successor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is making his former mentor’s dream come true. Secularists have taken to the streets in protest at what they call the Islamists’ “revenge” against the republic. Yet the bulldozers have moved in. Hundreds of trees are to be felled to make room for a replica of the Ottoman army barracks demolished by Ataturk’s successor, Ismet Inonu. The city’s mayor, Kadir Topbas, who comes from Mr Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, insists that the complex will house art galleries and cafés, but secularists say this is just window-dressing for the new mosque.

Some fret that such outbursts will bolster Mr Erdogan’s pious base. The real concern should be that the project was rammed through with “zero” public debate, argues Betul Tanbay, a member of the Taksim platform, a lobby group. Korhan Gumus, an architect, says that one effect of the project will be to trap motorists in long tunnels full of toxic fumes. Another is that neither revellers nor demonstrators will be able to mass around the square.

Much of this is in keeping with Mr Erdogan’s growing propensity to meddle with Turkey’s social and cultural fabric. His calls to criminalise adultery and abortion have been shelved. But his orders for the destruction of giant statues of an Armenian and a Turk in Kars were carried out. This week he called for legal action against a television series that depicts Suleiman the Magnificent as a seducer more than a warrior. Mr Erdogan complained that “30 years of his life was spent in the saddle, not in a palace as you see in TV shows”.

Until recently, Mr Erdogan was hailed as Istanbul’s saviour. After being elected mayor in 1994 on Mr Erbakan’s ticket, he sought to help the poor and relieved the city of 12m-plus from chronic drought, mountains of refuse and rampant crime. This boosted Mr Erdogan’s career but also drew the ire of the army, who egged on prosecutors to strip him of his mayoral seat, ban him from politics and send him to jail for reciting a nationalist poem.

Yet even Mr Erdogan’s staunchest supporters are doubtful about his plan to build a giant mosque on Istanbul’s tallest hill, Camlica, on the Asian side of the city (close to his Istanbul home). Again, ordinary citizens have had no say on the mosque, which will house up to 30,000 worshippers and, with six minarets, dominate the city skyline. “Mosques need to have congregations,” notes Mahmut Toptas, a popular imam. Few will scale the hill, a rare green space, to get there. Ducane Cundioglu, a columnist for the Islamist-leaning daily Yeni Safak, calls the mosque “a nightmare that will descend on Istanbul”. A design competition yielded no winner, so the job was awarded to the runners-up, two female architects.

UNESCO may rescind Istanbul’s world heritage status and move it to “endangered” because it is building a suspension bridge across the Golden Horn. The bridge’s masts obscure the silhouette of the 16th-century Suleymaniye mosque, a masterpiece by the Ottoman architect Sinan. Skyscrapers have already blighted the silhouette of Sultanahmet, the Blue Mosque. The city has pushed out old encampments of gypsies, transvestites and minorities. In the words of Ms Tanbay, Istanbul “is being robbed of its soul”.

via Istanbul’s heritage: Under attack | The Economist.

December 14, 2012
Metro bridge construction threathens İstanbul world heritage status

In a meeting with UNESCO representatives last week, the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality argued that the bridge will not negatively affect the skyline of the historical peninsula.

World Bulletin / News Desk

A report drafted by the Turkey branch of the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) states that İstanbul is increasingly at risk of being dropped as a UNESCO world heritage city due to the ongoing construction of a metro bridge over the Golden Horn.

İstanbul has long been facing the threat of losing its status in the UNESCO World Heritage List, and the report, which the organization is taking seriously, means that warning bells are ringing loudly.

In the report, experts suggest that the metro bridge be demolished and built all over again despite the financial loss that will incur, saying the damage caused by the bridge, currently under construction, cannot be eliminated by any means, according to the Taraf daily.

The report states that it is impossible not to see the negative impact of the bridge on the view of İstanbul’s historical peninsula. The report rules out suggestions by the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality on coloring and illumination of the bridge as a means to eliminate the negative impact on the view.

In a meeting with UNESCO representatives last week, the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality argued that the bridge will not negatively affect the skyline of the historical peninsula.

The metro bridge project has come under increasing criticism from experts. There were earlier concerns that UNESCO would consider putting İstanbul on its list of “world heritage in danger” due to the effect of the bridge on the city’s skyline, although UNESCO approved the construction in 2011.

ICOMOS Turkey also issued a warning about the renovation projects to be carried out in the Ayvansaray and Balat quarters of İstanbul, saying the result of these projects must not resemble that of Sulukule. In Sulukule, Roma residents were removed from their old houses and new residences were constructed in the area to house wealthy elites.

A planned filling of the sea in the Yenikapı neighborhood and a planned highway along the southern part of the historical peninsula are also likely to spoil the silhouette of the city.

The report also criticizes the authorities for not including civil society organizations and the public in the projects.

via Metro bridge construction threathens İstanbul world heritage status: report | Art & Culture | World Bulletin.

November 26, 2012
Culture in Peril: Istanbul’s Cultural Heritage Inventory

A cultural heritage cataloging project, “Inventory of Cultural Heritage and Cultural Economy of Istanbul,” has been ongoing in Turkey’s capital over the past 16 months. Through a partnership between the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, the Istanbul 2010 Capital of Culture Agency, and other institutions, the project seeks to categorize and inventory “every sort of cultural heritage” into an accessible online database. The 2010 project, much like its failed predecessors, is an ambitious one: with Istanbul’s centuries-old history dating from the Roman Empire and rich cultural legacy of diverse inhabitants, the comprehensive digital archive is expected to number in the millions. A small budget of only TL 1,512,000 (2.2 millions USD) complicates the endeavor even further.

Yet project coordinator Professor Ahmet Emre Bilgili remains optimistic the inventory is coming along well. His team of cultural heritage specialists–including historians, restoration experts, architects, collections managers, and public relations people–has “completed the vast majority of the project” in only a short amount of time.

Here’s a short blurb answering the oft-cited question regarding “cultural mapping” projects like this one: What will it contribute?

First and foremost, this project will lend a much-desired technological foundation and model for helping record the cultural heritage of other cities across Turkey. The project will also help promote Turkey on an international level as well as increase the tourism potential of the city. The vast cultural heritage of the city will finally be gathered in one accessible pool of information. In addition, the project Internet site is free to anyone who wishes access — an open source for foreign as well as local academics, students, teachers and the curious.

Keep an eye out for the completed database, expected December, 2010: www.istanbulkulturevanteri.gov.tr.

via Culture in Peril: Istanbul’s Cultural Heritage Inventory.

November 23, 2010