SACROILEÍTIS

Additions and alterations were continuously made over fifteen years (1937 and 1950) by CHR’s three different mayors, and between 1950 and 1960 by the DP. This long period of conceptualisation and execution makes it difficult to grasp objectively the content of the urban proposals, for the project, which was continuously evolving, cannot be described as a single plan. The implementation of Prost’s Plan was delayed by more than a decade because of Atatürk’s death in 1938, WWII and consequent economic difficulties.^^^ Despite this, it is important to mention the role of Mayor- Governor Lütfi Kirdar in the implementation process of Prost’s Plan.^^® In the ten years of his governance, Kirdar could speed up the bureaucratic procedure when the central government declined the budget in WWII, and made possible to implement partially the Master Pian.^^® Because of the limited budget, the execution of the plan was selective. Thus, with the collaboration of the French designer and the Mayor-Governor in the making of the public space, eighteen parks were constructed.^®®

Moreover, as the urban problems of the mid-1930s changed during the course of the executions, new proposals were added between 1937 and 1950. First, land use plans based on functional zoning for the historical peninsula and Beyoglu (FIG.3.7) were prepared - these plans of 1/5000 scale were approved by the municipality. Plans for Rami and Eyüp (historical residential cores on the shores of the Golden Horn) and areas outside the city walls were completed in 1941. Although several proposals were developed for the historical peninsula and the Beyoglu districts, the Asiatic part of Istanbul had a secondary place in the Master Plan. In 1939, Prost made a separate report for the Asiatic side of Istanbul, concentrating on three places, the old Üsküdar, the new developing area at Kadikoy (Moda and future residential areas on the Marmara Sea-front) and the Haydarpa§a harbour.^®^ The plan for the Anatolian side of Istanbul was approved in 1940. In 1943, an implementation programme of fifteen years for the Prost Plan was prepared, divided into three five-year-sub-periods (FIG.3.8). In the same year, for the renovation of Greco-Romaine heritage in the archeological park, in particular, Prost wrote a letter to Hautecoeur to procure financial support from Europe with an organism intemational d ’entre aide a la Turquie?^^ Moreover, in the mid-1940s, Prost improved the transportation plan, including a proposal of metro system (FIG.3.8).

^ For the economic difficulties of WWII and implementation of Prost’s Plan, see Kirdar, 1945:3-5.

278 Rakim Ziyaoglu, Cumhuriyet Devri: Istanbul Kadilari, ^ehreminleri, Belediye Reisleii ve Partner Tarihi: 1453-1971 (Istanbul’s judges, mayors and history of parties). Istanbul: Akgiin Matbaasi, 1971: 349.

279 On 5.06.1939, Kirdar took the approval of the urban reconstruction from Ministry of Interior; Kirdar, 1945:4; Ziyaoglu, 344-345.

280 Ziyaoglu, 344-345.

281 Henri Prost, TC Istanbul Belediyesi, Anadolu Sahill Nazim Planmi Izah Eden Rapor (report on the master plan of the Anatolian side). The Istanbul Municipality, 1940.

282 This meant to be a system similar to the Rockefeller Foundation support for the Versailles Palace; Prost, letter to Hautecoeur, 07.10.1943.

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Fig.3.7. Beyoglu Plan, Prost, c.1939

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At the end of six years of war, in 1943, Kirdar introduced the Atatürk Boulevard as the most important element of urban transportation and the most important accomplishment of the urban reconstruction.^®^ Kirdar inaugurated the Atatürk Boulevard in 1943:^®^

“Women and men have a national day of happiness today... the extraordinary beauties of Istanbul are in a new decor now... This is a successful masterpiece of the Republic. W e did not stop the reconstruction of the country in these difficult days [WWII]... We won’t stop it in future years either.”

Main roads were constructed and improved; urban demolitions around Misir Çarsisi and Yenicami, and their renovation; the urban demolitions in the Beyazit Square with a description of "we demolished the misery;"^®® the .clearance_qf Ottoman monuments’ surroundings; the urban reconstruction of the Taksim Square, Barbares and Üsküdar squares; green areas at local level, playground for children, parks/woods.^®® And Kirdar concluded that he aimed at accomplishing the urban reconstruction for the 500*^ anniversary of the city conquest in 1953287

In short, the state was selective in the execution of the plan: first of all, the Atatürk Boulevard was constructed as the main avenue of the city in a manner similar to other Turkish villages and towns, partial demolitions of 1148 plots,^®® and a large number of public spaces - espaces libres and their surrounding roads.

Another important activity was the collaboration of the Istanbul Municipality with the Real Estate Bank to build low cost houses at Mecidiyekoy, Haseki and Levent, that were built and ended up being the middle class housing areas in the following decade. In the urban terms, the most important feature in the transition era from the 1940s to the 1950s was that although the master plan and its implementation plan were ready, they could not be efficiently applied. Thus, the traditional urban pattern remained almost intact as well as the inhabited core.

To summarise, the separation between the main text of the plan and the notes, the great difficulty in identifying the data, which has been divided between Istanbul and Paris, the linguistic problems based on translation from French to Turkish, and the long period of the plan’s development and implementation were the basic reasons focthe difficulty in describing Prost’s Plan. All these affected the mis-interpretation of both the Master Plan and the urbaniste Henri Prost. Apart from these difficulties, the problems

283 Kirdar, 1945:8.

284 GQzelle§en Istanbul, no page number. 285 Kirdar, 15.

286 Kirdar, 20; for details, Gi)zelle§en Istanbul and Cumhuriyet Devrinde Istanbul. 287 Kirdar, 20.

288 “Vali ve Belediye Reisi Dr. Lütfi Kirdar’in Mektubu” (Ttie letter of Govemor-Mayor Kirdar) Cumhuriyet Devrinde Istanbul, 8-10; here 9.

are compounded by the general silence about the Prost Plan in Turkey, which may have been caused by^the-radiGal shift- of gpyemance between the 1940s and the 1950s. One important aspect of the silence might be the conflict of interest in the construction of Levent Houses in the northern part of the city between Prost and Aru, the planner of Levent Houses and later an effective member in the Revision Committee. This point will be given in Chapter 5. Even during the period of implementation in the 1940s, carried out with the mayor-governor, Prost was hardly credited by his critics (which is understandable; usually, the mayor, governor or political leader takes the credit in the achievements of urban reconstruction).

3.7.

SECULARISATION OF