Thresholds of Taksim, a new strategy of urban revitalization

Abstract: Spatial experience can be perceived as a kind of exploration of space that evolves within the fragments of lived moments and transforms over time. Squares, parks, and streets are the primary urban spaces where social interactions are experienced at an extremely high level. Taksim is one the most important and memorable public spaces of Istanbul, Turkey by being an assemblage of a square, a park, and surrounding structures. The fragmented transformation in Taksim, so-called a process of disidentification, follows a perspective that takes into account how the changes in the essence of a public space have transformed the area into a decontextualised void. The lack of enclosure of the square, out of scale spatial configurations and the disappearance of urban continuity which cause spatial orientation and articulation problems are the major problems that adversely affect the urban experience are observed under the existing conditions. This project aims to reactivate and redefine Taksim and its surroundings by enhancing spatial integrity, creating new interventions, and providing new functions to contribute to the development of daily life activities. To accomplish this aim, this project uses threshold spaces as a tool to revitalize an historical urban public space in the context of a collective memory. It explores a spatial orientation that recontextualizes the users in the square within the spatial framework and integrates with the urban memory through the use, reinterpretation, and design of transition spaces. The vanished traces of the past and the traces that are still accessible will be references for spatial definitions on the revitalization of urban public spaces by investigating the historical breaking points defined by the political background and the urban interventions affecting the process of change in Taksim.