Decoded city: Reading the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul under the shadow of different empires with multi-methods and approaches

Abstract

This research aims to show the complexity that lies beneath the urban layout of the historical core in Istanbul, which has been in the spotlight over the centuries due to its strategic location and historical significance. The city was the capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires throughout its history. In each period, the city was destroyed and the next generation simply rebuilt on the ruins of the previous one according to their everyday practices and own culture. This study examines the changes by using space syntax and Muratorian methods and also identifying the morphological regions of the city in terms of Conzenian tradition. The methodology is built in different scales: macro, meso and micro. Within these sections, morphological regionalization, which expresses the urban areas that have separate integrity from the other areas surrounding them in terms of form, is a method to figure out the relation among the main elements of urban form. In the research, the urban landscapes are read in multiple scales: the whole area, various ordered morphological regions as well as the building fabric and prominent buildings. Firstly, the expansion of the city in time and the urban components of each period as well as their differences were presented. Afterward, the spatial transformations of the area were defined by using spatial analysis. Secondly, Archaeological Park is analyzed. Lastly, the research describes how cultural changes reflected the palaces’ layouts in each era. To do so, j-graph analysis was used to investigate Byzantium and Ottoman Palaces. Each generation produced knowledge; those were adapted to tradition and reflected their own spatial culture. Three different morphological methods were adapted to decode the historical core of Istanbul. The study provides a better grasp of the transition of the area and traces culture in the sphere by means of internalist, normative and cognitive methods.