Modernity vs. modernism in Istanbul: The culture of rupture and the state of exception

Modernity vs. modernism in Istanbul: The culture of rupture and the state of exception

Brosens, P.
Bedir, M.

Architecture and The Built Environment

Architectural Engineering +Technology

2014-09-24

The modernity concept originated in western theoretical/philosophical thought. Characterised by secular, scientific, social and economic developments, it significantly affected arts and architecture. Modernism, its 20th century cultural outcome, was heterogeneous in nature and commonly related to local progress and technique. The Modern Project came in many forms and with multi-layered meanings. We unfold insights on possible Asian identifications through the inquiry of the self-imposed modernisation strategy of Turkey. The recent history of Turkey, for centuries a geographical and intellectual bridge between East and West, sheds new light on the interpretation and incorporation of modern principles and their cultural outcomes in Asian countries. We select Gezi Park and the protests (Taksim Square) as the main case to look into modernity in Turkey. The protests were a reaction to the rapid urban transformation of recent times in Istanbul. This transformation, mainly led by individual interventions by the Prime Minister (PM), is not the first in history. Istanbul of the 1950s has witnessed similar ways of operation, which changed the city and the public spaces radically. Tracing from the most recent to the farther, two contemporary intellectuals are proposed, at the one hand Frederic Jameson to question modernity and modernism and at the other hand Giorgio Agamben to look into the idea of the state of exception. With ‘paradigmatic issues’ as capitalism, criticism, freedom, the period and the break, modern(ist) characteristics in the society of Turkey today are brought to the surface. Particularities of regional discourses on modernity and their modernist productions must be examined within a broader theoretical scope in order to unravel cultural specificities and universalities on the subject. We try to avoid a categorical look at the history of modernity, which separates modernity as a completely western thought and its implementations in other contexts as the followers of this thought.

modernity
modernism
‘culture-of-rupture’
‘state-of-exception’
criticism
espace-libre
Istanbul

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DOCOMOMO Korea

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Proceedings of the 13th Docomomo International Conference "Expansion & Conflict", Seoul, Korea, 24-27 September 2014; Authors version

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2014 The Author(s)