Ankara has lost its valleys, orchards,

Gazi University
Faculty of Engineering & Architecture

Department
of
Urban & Regional Planning

INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL
Ankara, TURKEY, 13-17 June 2005

“ANKARA”

The City Longing For It's Environment

By Mehmet Tuncer
      Assoc. Prof. Dr.

HARMONY OF PAST AND
CONTEMPORARY NATURAL &
URBAN ENVIRONMENT

seven million
inhabitant are
projected for
2020

BUT :

Ankara:
lost its valleys, orchards, rivers
and streams
part of its historical environment

(1711) Gravure of Pitton Tourneford

In 1839; Angora
was walled
small town

ANGORA : AT THE END OF 19TH CENTURY

Today, the heritage of Atatürk,
Atatürk Orman Çiftliği,

one of the important “ecological
protection zones”;
Imrahor Valley,
Eymir and Mogan Lakes,

Last lakes and valleys need to
preserve as an
ecological system!

Mogan, Eymir Lakes, Cubuk Dam and Imrahor
Valley are under the thread of pollution from
highways and urban, industrial wastes

Result of water pollution:
deaths of fishes

Mogan & Eymir Lakes environmental problems and
potantial pollution sources

basin of the Cubuk, Ankara River
and fertile lands in west,

on the Istanbul Road to the
Kazan, Elmadağ where famous
for skiing facilities
are under threat.

There is a considerable pressure
on historic core

Valleys, hills of Keçiören, Etlik,
Dikmen, Seyranbağlari were
firstly invaded by the squatter
houses (gecekondu).

after 1983 via improvement plans

those areas were opened to high
rise development.

As a result, the urban green, which
had already been destructed by
(build and sell type) of contractors

AFTER SQUATTERS : Urban renewal samples from
Etlik and Keçiören

were wiped away by high rise
development in the inner parts of
the valleys, which were definitely
not available for settlements.

Valleys, Rivers and Streams
again :

Many valleys with rivers like
Ankara Cayi, Bendderesi, Çubuk
Cayi (Stream) was put
underground and

was included in the sewer system
due to the fact that they had been
formerly used for sewerage.

Jansen’s design of a swimming
pool on the Roman Bend was put
away and forgotten

Barakalaşma- Shelter housing on
the hills of Altındağ, which was
once ignored and was not pain
enough attention,

firstly turned the Bend River into a
polluted water stream and then to a
sewer system.

In fallowing years the
magnificent base of the valley, on
which the Ankara Castle rises,

covered by the squatters
finally the Bend River Avenue
was constructed on river.

Having the “Hıdır Tomb” on the
Altındağ Hill already annihilated,
the beautiful green areas and trees
on the bank of river,

which once the place where the
Hıdırellez was celebrated,
completely destroyed and
disappeared.

The habitants of Angora used to
orchards (BAĞLAR)
at higher spots of the city in order
to keep themselves from the dusty
and scorching days.

plateaus of the south and north of
Angora had Etlik, Keciören,
Dikmen, Gaziosmanpasa, Esat
orchards.

There used to be fabulous
orchards houses built by the well-
off habitants of the city.

It is plausible to say “used to be”
because almost all of them were
demolished, destroyed
unfortunately

except for the few which are
preserved until today and the
multi-storey blocks took their
places.

This house which is now used as
Ankara Research Center

in Gaziosmanpasa the orchard in
the Papazın Bağı, Karlı Street are
the ones who survived trough the
time and destruction of master
and implementation plans.

Orchards, in the modern (!) life in
which the seasonal migration was
forgotten, were firstly covered by
squatter housing as if there is no
place else for growth in the city.

And then in 1980 as if a great
invention, the areas were
“improved” by the district
municipalities.

Only seeing the improvement
action in the Keçiören would be
enough to astonish you.

Almost all of the quarter
“improved” via constructing 5 to 8
stories of apartment blocks

without leaving any area for urban
open space, urban green, or public
uses like sports areas or
playgrounds.

Gecekondu (Squatter) renewal (not
rehabilitation!)
high rise and high density, destroying
all greenery

RENEWAL of URBAN &
SQUATTER AREAS IN
ANKARA

Also the Valley of Çubuk Stream,
which was once the place where
flower greenhouses and vegetable
gardens existed, was “improved”,

and the area is fully covered with
a huge hypermarket, municipality
buildings,

and “Gaudy-like” arabesque-
styled apartments that are proof
of the development of Turkish
architecture which can compete
with Spanish examples.

Orchards, valleys and rivers of
Dikmen and Etlik also were
brutally “improved” like the
Keçiören case.

“Urban Renewal” (!) in the
Yenisehir and housing
cooperative areas:

YENISEHIR / KIZILAY : Destroying the landscape, historic &
cultural and human scale urban spaces

The foundation for those
inventions was laid in the early
60ies when the Flat Ownership
Law came into force.

The first cooperative zones like
Bahçelievler, Güvenevler,
Yenimahalle, Or-An, Varlık
Mahallesi, Subayevleri etc.,

., and almost the whole Kızılay
was demolished and
reconstructed, sometimes for
twice, in 15-20 years.

This process is called “urban
renewal” in the planning
literature; however, the renewal is
generally applied to socially
problematic high-rise zones in
western societies to create low
density areas.

In spite of this fact, probably
because there was no other place
left for settlements and in order to
protect the lowlands and hills of
Ankara,

the renewals at the same quarters
over and over seemed to be a
natural process.

God knows how many times we
encountered never-ending and
continuous electric, water, natural
gas and sewerage excavations and
asphalting in many places in our
city.

Of course these constructions,
muddy roads, ditches,
excavations, even walking to our
houses on wooden bridges had
been a funny trip back to my
days in my eastern home village
childhood days.

It has been way too late when we
realize that continuously
renewed pavements and
infrastructure has been one of the
biggest environmental problems

and one of the reasons of the ever-
increasing inflation and national
depts.…

I have lived most of my life in
the Bahçelievler; and I have been
trying to live on between the
never ending constructions and

continuously renewed
infrastructure systems;

I have been struggling with ever-
increasing population, traffic and
parking problems.

It is easy to examine that this
process have been going on in
many quarters of the city.

The effects of all the destruction
of orchards and urban green,

how dense the city have gotten
owing to construction of multi-
storey apartments standing on at
least 3-4 times bigger land then
the former structures,

Prof. Hermann Jansen’s
Plan :
BAHCELIEVLER
(Garden Houses)

A good example of the
destroyed living urban
space and environment

RESULTS : air pollution, noise
and visual pollution

Air pollution
especially in
winters

it is not easy to calculate the
social and economic problems,
environmental problems,
psychological problems caused by
these changes!

All these changes have taken
place for land owners and
contractors to make huge amounts
of profit.

The flats are shared between
them; however, paying the price
for infrastructure and going
trough the process is left to us to
experience!

Our national wealth has been
wasted on the poor quality
structures that collapse on our
people in every earthquake.

A modern, and planned capital
town, the end of the episode in
which Jansen tries to create a
Garden City;

here we have had air pollution,
transportation problems, lack of
infrastructure and non-served,
non-green environment;

since this is the situation, we can
say now that we should preserve
the last green areas in the city as
if they are “oasises” in a desert.

Old Ankara were not able to
survive the never-ending rent
quarrel;

except for the areas which were
designed as “Protocol Areas” in
Jansen’s plan, especially the
main streets of multi-storey (6-8-
10) buildings.

the development of Yenişehir
and the pressure of CBD had not
affected this area to an extend.

owners who could not demolish
the old structures and build new
ones,

deserted the quarters of Old
Ankara and left them into a
decline.

INNER CITADEL : Remains of Old Ankara

One of the
main
remains of
the
historic &
cultural
urban
heritage

Surrounded by Squatters (Gecekondu)

residential tissue turned into one
of the poorest areas with new
uses:
1. warehousing,
2. secondary uses
3. urban deteriorated areas .

The area turned into a “ghetto”,
which is used by the immigrants
only till they built themselves a
squatter house

“The Citadel”, that Jansen defined
as the “Crown of the City”, and
which was kept without any
conservation strategy until early
80ies,

had became the focus of
unplanned applications via
historical site (Protocol Area)
restrictions

and long lasting conservation plan
preparing processes.

The historical tissue, which tried
to rehabilitate itself owing to the
attention of tourism

and intellectual groups, was
destroyed by eclectic structures
that copied the civil architecture
of Ankara.

The urban design project for
Hacıbayram pedestrianised the
area, and dolmuş buses are
displaced.

URBAN DESIGN

PLAN FOR
HACIBAYRAM
AND TEMPLE
OF AUGUSTOS

The aim :
creating a pedestrian square;
however, today we see that the
area is again invaded by
vehicles.

20 years passed after the Ulus
Competition Project,

the places which went trough
urban design and restoration
processes in the 100 hectares of
area is not more than the number
of one hand’s fingers.

ULUS HISTORICAL
COMMERCIAL
CENTER
CONSERVATION /
REHABILITATION
PLAN

Çıkrıkçılar Rise, Hükümet
Square, Suluhan Area, Itfaiye
Square are yet to be
pedestrianised,

in fact, they are under pressure
becoming more dense and of
vehicle traffic.

The enormous Altındağ
Municipality Building in Esen
Park in this quarter of the city,
not only annihilated the vista
point of Jansen plan,

but also showed the merit to
collapse the pedestrian and
vehicle traffic in the area.

The Kaleiçi in the Old Ankara,
which is piece by piece
annihilated by fires, still is yet to
be protected by a Conservation
Plan.

The Old Ankara’s situation in this
respect is not very different form
the New Ankara; however, there
are SIT restrictions that stop the
speculators.

If these restrictions wouldn’t exist, it
is plausible to say that Old Ankara
would be demolished in weeks and –
let’s not so exaggerate- 4-5 storey
building would be constructed in the
Kaleiçi.

Today natural, cultural and
historical environment of Ankara
is still annihilated.

Improvement plans are gambling
and mortgage of the future of the
city;

and the time to stop this process
is definitely just more than
arrived.

Also all citizens, non-
governmental institutions, local
and central government
authorities are responsible for this
process;

however, the biggest responsibility
does belong to the owner of these
cities, municipalities.

Inventory of historical and
cultural heritage and a
“Conservation Masterplan for
Ankara” should be formed.

A complete inventory of natural
values, water basins, rivers,
valleys, valuable lands, flora and
fauna should be formed.

“Natural Environment
Conservation Masterplan” should
be prepared in order to preserve
and improve all of the stated
above.

“Metropolitan Area Masterplan”
should be prepared which
preserves natural, cultural and
historical heritages (in 1/25000
or 1/50000 scales.)

Urban Designs should be prepared
so as to form specialized projects
for restoration and rehabilitation of
the values stated above (in 1/5000,
1/1000, 1/500 … 1/1 scales.)

The destroy-built-sell and
improvement planning process
should be taken under control, and
structures should not be
demolished before they expire their
economic and technical lifetimes.

The revising of infrastructure,
roads and pavements in every
election campaign should be taken
under control with limitations;
since this the only way to reach a
sustainable urban development.

The citizens, habitants of Ankara
should be enlightened and
informed about the conservation
of natural and historical
environment.

Empowering the non-
governmental institutions to make
them be able to undertake projects
for conservation and development
is also very important issue for
the future of the city.

It should not be forgotten that
every citizen has an important part
in this process.

Referances :
• TUNÇER, M., Sürdürülebilir Kalkınma İçin Tarihsel Çevreyi Koruma
Politikası : Ankara, Bergama ve Şanlıurfa Örnekleri, Doktora Tezi, AÜ, SBF.
• ANKARA İMAR PLANI, 1937, S.5, Alaeddin Kıral Basımevi, İstanbul.
(Hermann Jansen’in Ankara İmar Plan Raporu, Türkçe Çevirisi)
• Ankara Kalesi Koruma Geliştirme İmar Planı, Projesi, Yarışma Şartnamesi,
Ank. 1987.
• Mehmed Kemal, 1983, Türkiye’nin Kalbi Ankara
• ÖNEN, R., Ahi Şefafettin Camisi ve Çevresinin Sağlıklaştırılması Projesi,
TMMOB. MO Ank. Şb. “Kültürel Miras Sayısı”.
• Ulus Tarihi Kent Merkezi Çevre Düzenleme Yarışma Şartnamesi, Ankara
Büyükşehir Belediyesi, İmar Dairesi Başkanlığı,
• Ulus Tarihi Kent Merkezi Çevre Düzenleme Yarışması, I. Ödül Raporu.
• Ankara BŞB, Ankara Programı Uygulama Planı, 1989.
• Koruyucu Kent Yenilemesi,
• http://www.ergir.com/Ankara.htm

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