Morphological Regions in Istanbul’s Historical Urban Landscape

Abstract

Istanbul has been a spectacular capital of greatest empires – Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman. In addition to the many wars and natural events that affected the city over 1500 years of urban history, Istanbul has experienced impetuous transformations of its physical form in the twentieth century. These transformations led to significant losses in a unique character and urban landscape. Against this background, it is argued that a scientific, evidence-based methodology should inform the regulation of change and transformation, in order to maintain the main elements of this unique urban landscape. This paper offers such a methodology. The concept of morphological region, identified by the historico-geographical approach to urban morphology, has the main role on the methodology. The methodology consists of a set of criteria based on the tripartite division of urban landscape. These are as follows: the age of streets, geometrical arrangement of streets, plot layout, and building coverage (in terms of ground plan); architectural style, building height, and building material or type of construction (in terms of building fabric); and land and building utilization. The methodology is applied into a part of the Fatih district, describing and explaining its physical form, and considering how future changes could be grounded on this analysis.