Skyframe (Gökkafes) in Istanbul: An Ontological Assessment1

 1. A Turkish version of this paper was presented at the Urban Design and Local Specificities in the Process of Globalisation Congress held at the Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul, 26–28 September 2001 (Günay, 2002).

Abstract

This paper is inspired by an expert report submitted to the Council of State concerning the Skyframe (Gökkafes) building in Istanbul. The conflict as to the coming into existence of Skyframe was brought to the court by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality against the Ministry of Tourism, where the municipality was objecting to certain procedural aspects of a building that was almost complete in 1999. The action gave the expert group a chance to investigate the history of Skyframe, which has coincided with urban space production by ‘property capital’ in the last two decades, and the weaknesses of the design and planning professions. In the report, though it is known that the courts usually look for more objective evidence, and that it is considered to be a metaphysical argument in philosophical discourses, ontology was used as a critical tool in the analysis of the Skyframe building.

Notes

 1. A Turkish version of this paper was presented at the Urban Design and Local Specificities in the Process of Globalisation Congress held at the Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul, 26–28 September 2001 (Günay, 2002).

 2. In Western languages there is gender differentiation for personal pronouns—he, she and it in English. In Turkish such a differentiation does not exist: we are all ‘o’. Therefore ‘it’ is used to represent the human being.

 3. Like commercial and financial capital another specialized capital exists with the sole function of planning and equipping space in order to increase the efficiency of commercial, financial and administrative activities. If it is accepted that space is a more important factor in time and labour than the capital invested in circulation as a whole, it is logical to assume that a specialized capital exists whose primary role is to plan this space in order to reduce the indirect costs of capitalist production. This capital is property capital (Lamarche, 1976).

 4. The parties in land-use disputes are as follows. The authorities for space control are: (1) the agencies of central government (including the Prime Minister's Office, provincial government, Ministries of Public Works and Settlement, Tourism, Culture, Environment, Forestry etc.); (2) local government (including metropolitan municipal administration); and (3) sub-local government (including metropolitan district municipalities). The parties who may apply for planning permission are: property owners; citizens affected by planning decisions; private or public institutions; sub-local government; local government; agencies of central government; non-governmental organizations (including chambers of professional groups or citizens); and villages.

 5. Vallon de Flamour meant Valley of Linden Trees. The merit should go to Dr Murat Güvenç (Department of City and Regional Planning, Middle East Technical University), who solved the riddle that Flamour was used to mean ‘Ihlamur’, meaning the Linden Tree.

 6. The Bosphorus Law, enacted in 1983, aims at the protection of cultural, historical and natural values of the Bosphorus (Boğaziçi).

 7. Suburbium was the commercial suburb of the urbs, which meant a city in fortifications (Pirenne, 1982).

 8. According to news in the press, in a recent important match the hotel rooms were sold for high prices.

 9. Both Ward (1993) and Bourassa (1989) attracted attention to a discrimination of postmodern approaches as that of reactionary postmodernism and postmodernism of resistance. While the latter recognized the importance of context, the significance of local culture, social institutions, techniques, climate and topography, the former focused on ‘aestheticization, eclecticism or formal contextualism’. In this framework Skyframe is certainly a product of reactionary postmodernism.