Heterotopic practice of space: Taksim Gezi Park revisited


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, Şehir ve Bölge Planlama Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2016

Öğrenci: DAMLA IŞIKLILAR

Danışman: MEHMET ADNAN BARLAS

Özet:

The primary aim of this thesis is the exploration of the term “heterotopia” coined by Foucault, in an urban design framework. With this aim, this thesis will trace the spatial urban usage and will demonstrate by exemplifications; how an open ended concept can be applied in an urban space, albeit there are no strict definitions, descriptions and directions in the related literature about how heterotopic thoughts can actually be injected to an urban space. In postmodern urban life, many different cases can be considered as heterotopias by means of urban space usage, like political settlement e.g. Freetown Christiania–Copenhagen/Denmark or physical allocation for settlement e.g. mega events like Olympic Games, world cups, Formula-1, carnivals, festivals or EXPO’s and social and political collective movements regarding city rights and urban transformations e.g. V for Vinegar protests in Brazil and Gezi Park protests in Turkey in 2013. This thesis will also seek to answer the questions on postmodern urban space under the light of characteristics of heterotopia. Turkey experienced a real life heterotopic occasion on summer 2013; Taksim Gezi Park Protests, which was a movement that can be considered as not only a physical urban heterotopia but also an amalgam of social, economic and political heterotopia.     vi Accordingly this thesis will analyze the spatial features of Taksim/Gezi Park Protests as a combination of social, cultural, institutional and discursive spaces in a context of Foucault's heterotopia. The different characteristics of the notion of heterotopia, e.g. intensity, contradiction, inconvenience-disturbance, transformation; which occur concurrently, will be examined on the spatial extent of the movement. Both the space of representation and the representation of space during the protests and post-protest period will also be examined under the light of heterotopic ideas and thoughts.