Accessibility of Industrial Heritages
The accessibility is the way to show how easily people can get to and utilize these buildings, which can represent the extent of integration. In this project, I will analyze accessibility to these cultural heritages in current Istanbul by their functions, and infrastructure condition around them. The infrastructure condition is measured by the distribution of public transportation routes and stations where people can move, and the distribution of restaurants and cafes, where people can stay.
Function
Cultural Center
University and museum
Complex of open and closed space
Open space
Undefined
Public transportation route
Restaurants and cafes
Bus stations
The map above shows the accessiblity to nine heritage sites in Istanbul. Please click them and see street views which shows the surrouding conditions.
Current Functions
Mostly, industrial heritages were reconstructed to these four categories:
1. Cultural center. Feshane and Sütlüce Slaughterhouse were mainly reconstructed to hold domestic and international cultural events, which is not tightly related to local people’s daily life. They present Istanbul as a global city, attracting many visitors and increasing revenue. However, although there is positive economic influence, they lack the function of serving local communities. (Günay, 2014)
2. University and museum. Cibali Tobacco Factory became Kadir Has University now. Hasköy Shipyard and Langerhane were purchased and combined to be Rahmi Koç Industry Museum. As public cultural exhibition platforms, they are not so closed as cultural centers. However, it was also a privatization process towards urban space. The university and the museum are privately owned, thus the owners can restrict the accessibility by setting up a threshold. Museum ticket and admission to the university makes the spaces only partially open to people. Furthermore, getting access to such space is more like a purposeful behavior, rather than a part of daily life, which is more random.
3.Complex of open and enclosed space. Santralistanbul Culture and Art Center is in this category. This renovation program includes a university, a museum, a public library, some artists’ residences, and a current open space. It seems that this complex has taken both economic benefits and public participation into consideration, but exclusion and gentrification have started to happen there, which made it less meaningful for local people. Restaurants here have been transformed into non-alcohol cafes due to the concerns brought by the Prime Minister and Eyüp Municipality. Besides, the improvement of built environment will attract higher value users to live there, excluding local ones then causing gentrification (Günay, 2014). This program was said to retain “collective memory” of the city, but the new development is actually homogenizing it (Canaran, 2009).
4.Open space. The location of Şahbaz Agiya Mahdumlari Brick Factory was built as an “open complex”, including an open-space museum, go-cart field and soccer field. Combining with green space, this place is most related to daily life without restrictions from physical remains.
Thus, do heritages act as a barrier for local people’s accessibility to public space? These physical remains attract investment, which can transform built environment to meet the need of capital production and reproduction. In this process, sustaining local daily life is not a profitable mode compared to developing tourism and cultural events.
Besides heritages mentioned above, the Golden Horn Shipyards and Kasımpaşa Flour Factory are currently left without specific renovation plan. They are partly playing the industrial roles in the past, but in dilemma as the renovated heritages did before reconstruction. Their fate is unknown.
Infrastructures
Public Transportation
Although most of the heritages are not on the subway line or the tram line, they are accessible by bus. Ferries can also bring people to the Golden Horn Shipyards, Rahmi Koç Industry Museum, and Feshane.
However, except Kadir Has University, the other heritages are separated from main part of Istanbul by highways. Highways make them hard to access by foot, and create sense of distance to people. Especially, for the “open complex”, more than motorways there is a long wall around the site, reducing the possibility of unplanned visit to the place. On the contrary, Sutluce Congress and Cultural Center increases its openness by building a tunnel in front. However, due to its “international” image and function, it is still far from local people’s daily life. The physical connection can only utilized by visitors in cars.
Restaurants and Cafes
Most of the sites are surrounded with some restaurants, whether intentionally settled after the reopening of industrial heritages or not. Among them, only “open complex” does not have any restaurants around it. Combining with the transportation condition, the site was constructed as a paradox: this open space should have the tightest relation with people, but it is still closed by the wall and motorway, without any attractive space for people to stay.
The other sites, although with restaurants and cafes, have different conditions. Santralistanbul, the site in the process of gentrification according to Günay, has big difference between inside and outside. Restaurants inside Santralistanbul are delicately decorated, while those outside the boundary across the street appear daily and common. Thus, it is hard to make sure if restaurants outside can serve visitors to Santralistanbul, and if this heritage site can make benefit for the local community.
Feshane and Rahmi Koç Industry Museum are surrounded by neat streets and restaurants, which have presentative function as their sites do. On the one hand, designation and reconstruction of these two sites did benefits to the surroundings and improved environment quality (Ozden, 2012). On the other hand, heritages sites and catering business make up a whole cultural package, mainly serving visitors for tourism development. There is a possibility of gentrification, which is similar to the condition of Santralistanbul. Besides, motorways still act as a barrier between sites and restaurants.
Kadir Has University has a quite high density of restaurants around it. It was developed not due to tourism, but for consuming needs from the campus. Besides, tourism and economic development in the old city also offer opportunities for catering business there.
For the Golden Horn Shipyards and Kasımpaşa Flour Factory, there has been restaurants around them, but are daily ones and separated from the sites by motorway. From experiences above, it can be expected that after the renovation, one possibility is that the sites are isolated, having little connection with surroundings; the other one is the process of gentrification, making local restaurants replaced by ones which are more popular and representative to tourists.