Zaha Hadid
A coastal district municipality on the south-east Anatolian side of Istanbul, along the shores of the Marmara Sea, Kartal was a 6th century Byzantine fishing village that was developed into an industrial center by the Republican state during the mid-twentieth century, experiencing highly accelerated growth and urbanization in the 1950s and 60s. Masses of migrant workers from rural Anatolia came to Kartal to fill its factories, particularly in the expanding textile sector; this led to the building of a great deal of illegal, low-quality, impromptu housing (known as gecekondu), and a culture of squatting. In the 1980s, after the return to a democratic government, there were efforts to regenerate the neighborhoods of Kartal by granting development rights to squatters, however this also coincided with the de-industrialization of the area during the same period, which meant that, aside from the loss of jobs for poor migrants, much of the land became derelict. Due to its location, available land, problematic population/housing, and industrial history, Kartal has become an area of particular interest for redevelopment: with the objective of making Istanbul a truly polycentric city in the 21st century, the AKP state initiated a number of projects to transform and modernize Kartal as one of its centers. Among these projects, an international competition was launched by the Metropolitan Planning and Urban Design Centre of Istanbul (IMP) to attract prestigious architects to design a fresh and attractive concept for a new Kartal, and the competition was won by the futuristic, utopian design scheme of Zaha Hadid in 2006: the “Kartal Masterplan”. Hadid’s proposal for the Kartal project has yet to be implemented, and is another example of the struggle to balance aggressive commercial development with the needs of current residents in urban planning.
Photo source: https://www.zaha-hadid.com/masterplans/kartal-pendik-masterplan/
Sources:
Zaha Hadid Architects, “Kartal Masterplan,” https://www.zaha-hadid.com/masterplans/kartal-pendik-masterplan/
Kartal Belediyesi website, “About Kartal,“ http://en.kartal.bel.tr/index
Arzu Kocabas, “Kartal urban regeneration project: challenges, opportunities and prospects for the future,” WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, vol. 129 (2010): p. 571-582. http://dx.doi.org/10.2495/SC100481
Ebru Firidin Özgür, “Urban design projects and the planning process: The Kadıköy Old Market Area Revitalization Project and the Kartal Industrial Area Regeneration Project,” Cities 31 (2013): p. 208-219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2012.05.003