Henri Prost
The Prix de Rome scholarship enabled Henri Prost to study the ancient architecture of Istanbul as a student from 1904 to 1905. From these years on he maintained connections to Turkish intellectuals, which in 1934 led the Municipality of Istanbul to lure him from his position as chief city planner of Paris to come to Istanbul to develop a master plan for the city’s modernization and redevelopment. Prost’s plan sought to highlight the city’s ancient heritage by creating flattering sight-lines for some of its ancient monuments. At the same time, and ironically, Prost succumbed to the coming dominance of the automobile, which led to a plan employing major traffic arteries that have dramatically altered the physical character of the city and the way that its ancient heritage is approached and experienced. The plan above highlights this highway construction, actual and foreseen, in red.
Bilsel, Cânâ. “’Les Transformations d’Istanbul’: Henri Prost’s planning of Istanbul (1936-1951).” AIZITU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture 8, no. 1 (2011-1): 100-116.