Faltmarke
Faltmarke
1 km
The Project ISTANBUL on LINE demonstrates how a city can be observed by line-walking. It's difficult to walk on a single straight line through a city, especially in Istanbul, but it's an intensive urban adventure and a big experience full of life. In this documentation "map" we will see how effective and powerful the technique of linewalking can be for analysing cities and different kind of territories.
"We wanted to get an image about this incomprehensible big urban territory, so we developed the radical idea of a line, to explore it all, and let anything unseen behind."
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In February 2007 a group of just 8 Liners (light equipped students) showed in Istanbul during 3 days, how we can get - by walking a 26 km long line straight from East to West - useful and unknown information about the urban territory. A journey to the secrets and hidden spaces of Istanbul produces a new portrait of the city.
The Liners
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I am a singulary representation of Istanbul !
The Line is imaginary, the Path is real !
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Welcome on Line!
biggest off north =296 m
>off-line >off line diagram< g horizonttal deflection Line = 26,0 km
Line-Walking - A new Format to explore cities !
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Amplitude Line Access
biggest off south = 517 m
access privat property line access in public space
In January 2007 an in Istanbul founded group of interests around Erasmus students in architecture (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul) were ready to go. Go out of university to learn more, and Go out into the city and search together for urban fields you can hardly see during a centre located daily life between university and apartment (Besiktas,Taksim,Eminönü,Kadiköy). Where are the Gecekondus? What is the difference between Asian and European side? How big is the city, and where is its border? Questions like this are interesting for Foreigners and Locals. Usual Images of landscapes (in our mind) is formed by perspectives along streets networks, and ways of transportation. "Going out" doesn't mean driving along highways and looking out of the window. For understanding a landscape beyond that, we need to be slow. It's necessary to walk, and have enough time to look and feel the atmosphere.
But maybe just Istanbul is growing to fast! ;)
Line Walking is a spontaneous relaxed walk to observe a city - "A linear Dérive". The 41st coordinate West-East on the city map, bacame path of walking for 3 days. According to the city shape and the Orient/Occident or West/East topic of Istanbul, the starting point was in Europe and the end point in Asia. Between Atatürk Airport in the West, and Suburb Ümraniye in the East there are 26 km with the middle point of "Hagia Sofia" (old landmark and hart of the historical centre). Expedition goal: "Go from West to East, with using the shortest and most direct way through public space". Recording of different data during the Walk, make possible to draw a new Portrait of the city. Little side projects like "seeds", "red line" and "exchange" are the actionist elements "on line" and let real traces behind. Finnaly the project cancel the big top-down gap of "Its hard to down, if you are up!" with going on the bottom - Adventure, Fun and Urban Praxis.
What mathematically is called "curve discussion" could be for the "Istanbul-curve" an urban discussion: with its main issue: We can read the amplitudes of Istanbul like diagram for "accessibility of public space".
Access & Functions / The points show where the group had directly access to the line. Only 142 line touches were possible, and the main path- length is off-line. The white circles mark the access situation on private property like gardens, building sites, mosque areas, gated communities.
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2. saturday
AVRU A V PA A
Google Earth strips Europe + Asia
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3. sunday
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time line
Red Line / A line is a perfect abstract object. What happens when somebody try to realize this line in the reality of the city with one's Hands and few material? The line was somewhere and we wanted to reveal it into our senses. The project RED LINE intended to live our line: marking it by a red thread, composing objects found around, playing and "constructing a situation" with our body…We let our marks behind us, hoping some people would feel it too! Perihan Usta
Cognitive vs. Official Districts / During walking through cities you are passing a lot of invisible borders. For Example Political Borders are born on maps, and often have no connection to the real space. The upper row in the diagram represents the official district borders by name and size. Parallel to it we tried to divide the city in a psychogeographical way into sensitive areas and parts how we felt it during walking on line. These cognitive borders are subjective and offer another district system - our personal districts. The letters A, B, C, D show the grade of attractiveness of every single section. Carla Mevissen.
mass housing
water tunnel
mass housing
gated )-:
mass housing
wool football
climbing
wedding on-line (-:
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75 m
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scale 1 : 12 000
seeds
Exploring "Discontinuity" (urban field Istanbul) by "Continuity" (Line).
its dirty earth that is also an element of life? Istanbul grew in speed tempo and ten folded its size in the last decade, how the city of Istanbul is dealing with this element? The project SEEDS tests the fertility of the ground by seeds. First step: seeding the seeds along our line on the fertile ground, and mapping those fertile areas on a map. Second step: Come back three month later and look the results. Let´s see...! Elsa Berrada
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ASYA
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shematical cut section Istanbul
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Profile 50 m
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eating
highway
dead dog!
foto-shooting tiny girl
mosque
children
phone
water department
poor housing
highway
tunnel
Allmonhill rich
gated Lüx Housing
military dream garden
Bazar
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sunny 18°C
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old woman
house blocks
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Iran
70 million people I-:
grave rose
Military 2
Military )-:
Harem Habour
Dolphines! o-:
Kaptan Mustafa / Can Baba (-:
City Wall jump
Topkapi Palace
Train
St. Sophia
history
"Are you the tourist guide?"
cafe Camille
dooves
exchange tesbih
B-designer cloths
russian shop
Nnathascha?
red wool
scurity Ismail
kac para? )-:
exchange Sebahattin
mosque
eggs
gecekondu
monday morning kanyak
football
exchange necklace
city wall
Fathma Iskender (grave)
tiny dog
tecno sound
man sleep on bench
bus [P]
sunny 12°C
machanic garage
bridge
Atatürk
table
efes beer
gated
carbage car repair
dizzy legs (-:
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The coloured Diagram show the single property function, and give information about obstacle situation and reason of detouring.
sunflowers seeds, e proof the h openess of ground g
C. Cesme Mahallesi
F. ÇAK MAK
Zafer M.
Hürri yet M.
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dogs, small factories, emptiness, sunday moring, security, cold wind
Sogasoganli Mahallesi
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friendly
lifeless
Kocasinan Merkez M.
unpersonal narrow streets, 4-5 storried houses, one green tree, very straight block structure, nobody
clustered structure, residential houses, wide streets, play ground, green areas
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B busy small shops, people on the streets, children playing, men at mosque
islands change of street grid, city opens, green, unused, areas surround high apartment buildings
introverted old buildings, narrow streets, used gaps between buildings, trade
Legend cognitive map: very attractive area middle attractive less attractice unattractive
A. Naziv Gürman M.
C
B
happy family smaller houses with gardens, quiet, empty streets, construction site, urban waste
M. Ersin Bahceliever M. Özmen M.
Haznedar Mahallesi
contrast
B artificial
peaceful resitential area, housebars with gardens between, big difference in hight, peaceful sunday afternoon mood, green, public spaces
gated community, lots of trees, playing child, people in their own world vs. industry fallow, big efes brewery, trucks
Unzuun Veledi Karabas M. Yusuf M.
Seyit Nizam Mahallesi
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D
B
no man's land
hidden
highway! transportation, movement on several level, empty bottles, used condoms, garbage, storrage, ominous, bus collection, kurdish cemetery
Inebye Mesih Keci Hatun M. Caki Seyit Ömer M. Nevbahar Raga M. M. Pasa M. Mimar Kemalettin M. M.
illegal settlements, poor, farmed land, close to the wall, life in the city wall
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B
nothing special ?
old
evening and early morning, Kanyak drinking makes warm, no habitation of the public space, women on windows, gecekondu have trees
old structure, historical mosque and wall, hidden between buildings, puplic space is used, village in the city
Beya Molla zit M. Fenari M. Alemdar M. Cankurt Aran M.
tourist
trade, storage, buisness, puppets, workers carrying heavy, woman like prostitutes
int. Bosphorus
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B
russia
blub
Mimar Hay Rettin M.
AAA
topkapi palace, school/ historical district, touristic area of sultanahmet, we are not foreign but tourists dorm of military, unused with money, concerned about appearance land with best view, crossing rail trace
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B
Dolphins beautiful
lost
Selimiye Mahallesi
Dolphins in the Bosphorus, over 20 swimming under the water surface, little boat can baba, flat afternoon sun light, released group, most beautiful spot
ships
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small bored no! no!
metal, habour, forbidden area, big streets
A B C D
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mosq ue, small house es, cot off the rest
Arakiyeci Haci Mehmet Mahallesi
Kosu Yolu M.
quiet
industry, cemetary, big trees, no factories, orientation between graves, twilight, calm animal hospital, finnishing time mood
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unpersonal kindergarden, gardens, suburbs
Üna lan M.
Acibadem Mahallesi B
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residential area, more green and fences, asian living area, expensive
always same house still mainly apartment buildin, more storeys, less green per person, priority on living, hardly any stores
official district border
car delux huge construction site surprise, shuttle bus off line, Allmond Hill Comunity, artificial lüx settlements, no city structure
C fear dead landscape between highways
Esatpasa Mahallesi
Bulgurlu Mahallesi
dull
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boring cars
site of water supply department, bigness, closed area, apartments at the border, sqeezed between site and street
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living, children playing, clustered, small areas
no idyll
unfriendly, huge, out of scale
not ready rest areas along fresh highways, earth, building site, devided city, loud, garbage
Mustafa Atake Kemal M. ny M.
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B
finding a bridge
street life
different levels of landscape, and huge distanes between bridges, hell for walking
nice little plaza next to bridge, shops, fresh food, little oasis, marriage on line
Yaukari Dodullu M.
Cakmak Mahallesi
emerging like mushrooms : blocks, blocks, blocks, blocks ... profit based area of building mafia, huge field of brand new mass housing, blocks without end, moon landscape, big distances, no life, no nature, just earth and fresh buildings, 2nd map surprise, many buildings are that new and not on the satelite image, boring, urban territory in kids age, radical absence of city planning
cognitive city
exchange & red line
Exchange & Faces / The city with all its elements can be seen as a construction. To influence it and let traces behind, we developed the idea of Changing Objects. Personal Objects are little fragments in the whole system. We asked people exactly on line always one question: "Here I have a personal object of somebody, do you want to change?" In this way 1 Compass, 1 Ring, 2 Necklaces, 1 T-shirt, 1 Cocktail glass, 1 Tea cup, 1 Banner and 1 Knife changed its owner.
The form of open collaboration was very successfully. The Line could be seen as the Main Idea (Master Plan), and every participant could set a personal thematically focus on a special topic. Only together we could get this fantastic experience, something what you could never learn on university.
Credits:
ISTANBUL
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*Amplitude = "the magnitude of the maximum disturbance in the medium during one wave cycle" (wave-physics).
Mental Mapping / Cartography is mostly associated with mapping only hard facts and needs. Psychogeografical and Mental Maps are able to show impression of a person about its surrounding. The 11 m long Line map (paper strip) was made by all group members together in the evenings after walking. In this way a cognitive image of the line become visible. Conventional maps do not exist! - Mental maps are as real as political and official maps!
Vision - With ISTANBUL on LINE and the "The concept of Line" we wanted to show what powerful tool a line can be to produce new views about cities. It´s important that "subjective" data is as real as official data. This "Urban Format" can be done everywhere in the world, that cities can be compared. Let´s make a Line-Network! What is your city waiting for? Line it up!
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network. Moving linear means confrontations with a lot of different borders. If there is a hard mass objects like building, wall, fence, slope you have to make a detour around, just like as soft objects people, site rules, guards, dogs. Every city produces a "Path-Diagram" with many different little Amplitudes*. The path is influenced on the one hand subjectively by the group, on the other by every element of the way: hard objects, soft objects, ownership structure, land usage, traffic ways, properties sizes etc. All causes shape & bigness of the Amplitudes.
The group - The Liners are voluntary based group of about 8 -10 people of the fields architecture, photography, urbanism, art and social work. Before and after walking there were meetings in workshop format, where ideas were discussed and everybody presented his/her work (climbing tools, check military areas, navigation, marking, check boat, etc.).
Results - You can go a 26 km line in Istanbul - and you still can not see the end! From Europe to Asia and you always think you are "inside" the city. But the project was a success. In 3 days we won a real feeling over an 2000 year old "exploded" urban territory and its people. The slow walking and navigation always showed the precise position on line. For Istanbul we can not use the classical terms of "city" anymore - its better to say "metropolitan area" or "big agglomeration". After this 3 days we knew, wehave learned more about cities, than in every urban planning lessons before.
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BARBAROS M
The idea was to walk a Line. Following a straight linear path across the city is a way to see everything, also the Backside and Inside of the city. Like an Apple cut into two halfs, we get the "Cut Section" of Istanbul. Important were the ideas of the SI, "derivé, psychogeography, constructed situation", which inspired us to make an actionist city project about Istanbul.
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Amplitude & Graph / Every city have its own pattern of street
Seeds / The city is a space of enclosures. What about the ground,
A city is an endless summary of local points and elements, in one moment of time.
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barbwire
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military , more fences, forbidden
Motivation - ISTANBUL on LINE is not a university project, but it's made by architectural students together with interests of other fields. Driving force of the project was the strong Will of seeing and understanding the incredible big urban field of Istanbul as a whole! The reason was simple, because where ever you go during 3 month life in Istanbul, you never can see an end of the city, always new places, quarters and always endless buildings on the hills along the horizon. Too big for a middle-european hart!
with a 6 meter satellite image, a Google Earth print (strip) for locating the line in the city and for recording (drawing) the gone way. Parallel the GPS equipment recorded the precise way of movement and position/height/time/distance. Interesting is the fact that the Google data is so old, that it couldn´t fit with the real situation in many cases.
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military , fences, cameras, strict looks
"A Line on paper is abstract. Put a Line on a city, and it´s becoming multi-dimensional Real Life."
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privat garden
is a perfect abstract object. A straight curve contain an infinite number of points. In Euclidean geometry, exactly one Line can be found in passing through any two points, and provides the shortest connection between the points.
GPS & Google Earth / The on Line Navigation was made
mosque + prying time
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[[m]]
wall jump
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dirty water pipes
A Line
grass
In a practical way this part of the map shows facts and explains the data of the expedition. The output of three days walking and field study on territory of metropolitan area Istanbul is collected and placed in form of different lines on the right map. There is in the upper half general data illustrating the line, path, time, distance, and in the lower part subjective data and small projects - focusing on different topics. The example of Istanbul should illustrate "Line-Walking" for a discussing about tools for the future of cities : cold wind 8°C
The idea of walking is not new, the first medieval hikers, the Flaneur in Paris, the situationist Derive until Lucius Burghardts Walking Sciences show, that going, enjoying and observing the nature is an old thing. This part of the map should give an idea about theory, motivation and background of the project :
old tree
Lines and Graphes
fresh friut
The project
exchange ring (-:
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Bread factory
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profit, money )-:
Functions
function of obstacles
Project Team: Elsa Mekki-Berrada, *1978 in Chatenay-Malabry, France / Young Architect Markus Jeschaunig, *1982 in Graz, Austria / University of Arts Linz Carla Mevissen, *1982 in Hamburg, Germany / Leibniz University Hannover Perihan Usta, *1983 in Ankara, Turkey / Mimar Sinan Fine Arts Univ. Istanbul
mental mapping
The Liners: Elsa Mekki-Berrada (F), Annette Bozorgan (F), Erdem Bastung (T), Can Inal (T), Markus Jeschaunig (A), Jana-Katharina Mende (G), Carla Mevissen (G), Ulrike Mohr (G), Camille Renault (F), Perihan Usta (T), Foto-Can Yücel (T) Concept, Text: Markus Jeschaunig Layout: Markus Jeschaunig, Carla Mevissen Location: Istanbul / 2007 Critics & Support: Orhan Esen / Urban Researcher in Istanbul (T), Jean Francois Perouse / Geograph & Director of Istanbul Urban Observatory (F/T). Ass. Prof. Kaya Sönmezler & Ass. Prof. Ahmet Tercan / Architects, Eda Yucesoy / Urban Design, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul
on
LINE
what the city writes
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26 km
Schnittmarke