Inceolu,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.Ula Dal,
N.Doratl, .nal Hokaya, P.Uluay (eds), EmuPress,GaziMausa, 2004, pp.381-387.

THE MAKING OF A PUBLIC SPACE: (RE)READING ANTAKYA

Mine Inceolu
Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul/Turkey
Ipek Yada Akpnar
Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul/Turkey
A.Burcu Serdar Kknar
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 socioeconomic 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 todays 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 inbetween 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 Lefebvres (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 Lefebvres
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 spontane (Kostof, 1999:43-44).
The ville spontane 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
(nalck,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 Prosts 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 (Akpnar, 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
Lynchs architectural and urban notions: focusing on urban space and its interfaces 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 faades . illuminated narrow passages .

. variations of the levels .

Ula Solakolu
. 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 imek
. 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 Lynchs
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
Inalck, H. 1998. The Islamic City, Essays in Ottoman History. Istanbul: Eren,
247-271
Klbay, MA., 1993. ehirler 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. Atatrk. London: John Murray

Morley, D., Robins, K., 1995. Spaces of Identity, Global Media, Electronic
Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries. London: Routlegde.
ncu, A., Weyland, P., 1997. Space, Culture and Power. eds. London: Zed Books.
References from other sources
Akpnar, I. 2003. The Rebuilding of Istanbul after the Plan of Henri Prost, 19371960: from secularisation to Turkish modernisation. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation. UCL-Bartlett School of Graduate Studies.
Kknar, ABS., 2001. Mekansal Arayzlerin Kente ve Yaama Katlmlar zerine
Bir Inceleme. Unpublished Master thesis, ITU Institute of Science and
Technology.

Communication address, phone / fax number and e-mail

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