Urbane Ethiken
Istanbul: Heritage ‑ Valuable and Dispensable. The Ethics of Urban Renewal and Heritage Protection, from 1910 to the Gezi Protests of 2013
The question as to what sort of a city Istanbul is and should be – Islamic, traditional, oriental, a Third World metropolis, (post-) colonial or global – is not a new one. Urban policy and in particular heritage protection discourses have over the past century continually tried to find an answer. Conservation determines whether the urban fabric and its history(-ies) is either worthy of protection or heritage or is worthless, dispensable. "Istanbul Heritage – Valuabe and Dispensable” examines conflicts over historical buildings, which are negotiated through ethical arguments. The project examines how structural forms and historical models are linked to subjects and the ethics of a “good” and “right” life. The negotiation of the value of historical heritage in Istanbul connects not only with the question of how the city should be, but also with who should live in it and how.