How does Turkey look like? For people living in East Asia, most of them do not really recognize this country, including the author himself. Even though they know where Turkey is, they could misunderstand that Turkey's capital is Istanbul, of which should be Ankara.
The author has been Ankara and Istanbul for a week in order to get familiarized to the country for his graduation project. During the trip used the both European and Asian perspective to look at the cities and attempted to understand different views on different sides.
When the author arrived at the first stop - Ankara, he felt that the city was totally different from Netherlands - Netherlands are flat, can hardly find any high and low land. The infrastructure and road networks are also so systematic and under control. Rectilinear street grids are common prototype of a city. Ankara, city built within the highland, has organic configuration of urban fabrics. City has informal and formal buildings with crowded people and traffic. Yet, these phenomenon is not new to the author as there were similar condition in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Its old centre, Ulus, chaotic but with varieties, recalled author's memory when he was at Stanley in Hong Kong. Both have maze-like small streets, temporary extension of shop front. Yet, the traffic condition reminds him about some cities from mainland China, chaotic and unorganized. Crossing road is a dangerous game. There is no differences when we arrived in Istanbul. But with the mountainous terrain, its rich history and its special geographical location with a harbour divided into European side and Asian side, it becomes famous around the world.
In the architectural discourse, Ankara and Istanbul both have informal urban settings. Gecekondu is the typical informal houses, especially in Ankara. While Ankara, once it was established as capital city, was already planned as a city with western utopia notion. However, with several masterplan undergone, the informality of the city still becomes dormant. Only the forest farm, as a place to facilitate cultivation of technology and mind, successfully performs the idea of utopia. Yet, in this post-modern era of Turkey republic, could the forest farm continue its legend of utopia notions? or would this notion need to be re-valued to suit the present situations? This is the question the author should be answer during this graduation year.
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| Panorama view of Ankara with Gecekondu in front and Toki buildings at the back |
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| Street market in Ankara |
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| Ayasofya museum in Istanbul |
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| Night view of Ayasofya |
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| Indoor market in Istanbul |
