Visible City

Archeology park | Type: Narrative, typology. Year: 2017.

As Istanbul discovers its past through an unintended project of archeological excavations, the project proposes an attitude in framing and exhibition of artifacts to inspire a public practice of contemplation.

Located in Istanbul, the project takes the Yenikapi field, a reclaimed land infill in the heart of the historic peninsula promoted by the government as a specially designated zone for political demonstrations in 2014 – as a response to Gezi Park protests that spread all over the city- yet seldom used ever since, and turns it into an archeology park for temporary storage and display of artifacts that continually surface across the city due to major urban renewal projects. In Istanbul, the major infrastructural projects in the past decade has become a go-to governmental practice of excavating opportunities for speculation and capital accumulation, almost exaggerated to the extent of becoming a national economic policy. An emerging trend paralleling the mega-projects of Istanbul is the accidental re-discovery of the remnants of its past, as in the findings dating back to the Paleolithic era during the highway construction along the new 3rd bridge route, or the discovery of the new extents of the city wall from almost two millennia ago during the foundational work for the Marmaray project – the subterranean tunnel at Bosphorus. Fueled both by ambitions of propaganda as well as propelling growth and investments, infrastructural projects and urban interventions spearheaded by the political will has simultaneously turned into an unintentional project of archeological excavations conducted across the metropolitan territory.

As the city grows and the political will enacts transformations in a geographical scale, in such a rapid fashion, the project as a response aims to construct a site that offers a contemplative window into the past, allowing dislocated artifacts to temporarily frame the city that they once belonged. Yenikapi, an ancient Byzantine port, becomes a stop once again, through assuming a nodal importance in a logistical as well as a mythological network, where the rate of change of the city is inscribed, recorded, made visible. Pits of five different scales are scattered across the field, some left completely bare, to accommodate varying scales of artifacts ranging from remnants of past walls and ships, to pottery. The pit typology intends to become an interstitial medium between the public and its city; through framing fragments of the city and public spaces simultaneously. Architecture turns the city back on itself, rendering accumulative urban growth on one hand and inscriptions it deems necessary on the other, synonymous.

Project: Aykut Imer.