Research Information System
24th ISUF International Conference, Valencia, Spain, 13 - 16 September 2017, pp.280-298
Being major transportation infrastructure
of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the impacts of
railways on cities have highly directed urban studies; deforming material edge
of cities, encouraging urban extension, forming new territories, and speeding
up urban development. However, in recent decades, with newly emerging landscape
infrastructure practice, a new idea for a more integrated infrastructure and
landscape system has started to be formulated. Railway strips, occurring as
territories where solid-void morphology of cities becomes illegible, emerge as
generators in the formation of urban green network.
Within this framework, Ankara
commuter line that mark outs a route approximately 37 kilometers in length in
the city, is a remarkable case for a motivating discussion on railway and
landscape confrontation. Penetrating the city in east-west direction, the
commuter line integrated with a rural landscape –covering orchards, truck
gardens and creeks- that was serving as a recreational field for citizens until
1950s. However, the transformative nature of the railway encouraged the
development of new urban lands, industrial areas and neighborhoods along its
route, and erased the characteristic landscape fabric. The continuous landscape integrated with
green, water and railway infrastructure became fragmented covering only some
splits of green and water. In this respect, this study dwells on the lost
landscape of the commuter line by mapping the fragmented continuity of the
railway, green and water infrastructure from 1950’s until today to show the
limited, but potential interaction of these three systems in the current urban
fabric.