Researcher and assistant professor, Istanbul Bilgi University, Faculty of Communications.
Asu Aksoy has conducted research at British and Turkish universities, with special emphasis on urban and cultural transformations in the context of migration, globalization, and policy. She has published internationally on these subjects, documenting the impact of worldwide migration on the cultural capital of cities in Western Europe. In addition she has written extensively on the transformation of Istanbul in the context of the globalization of the city. Aksoy lead a project on the cultural economy of Istanbul, aimed at developing policy recommendations in regard to the agenda for the creative city. She collaborated in the establishment of Santralistanbul, an international art and culture center founded by Istanbul Bilgi University.
picture: George Brugmans
It must be the city’s unique position, straddled over the Bosporus and connecting continents and civilizations, histories and religions, trade and knowledge routes, opinions and cultures: whether as Byzantium, Constantinople or Istanbul, its geopolitical importance has been undisputed for two millennia.
However, its fortunes have always been on the up and down, and when, in 1923, Ataturk moved the capital of the new secular Turkey to Ankara, the city seemed fated to wither away.
Over the last half-century though Istanbul has shaken off most of its nostalgia and made a stunning come back. What started as a demographical explosion, largely because of Turkish migrants flocking to a city that went from half a million inhabitants around 1955 to about 14 million in 2012, consolidated into a metropolis that is now an economic powerhouse and a major political and cultural player, both in the MIddle East and in the world. Yet again, Istanbul is at the crossroads, and it is, sometimes litterally, the main battleground for the future of Turkey.
picture: George Brugmans
REFUGE
The IABR’s began to be active in Istanbul in 2008 when the city became headquarters for one of the six major research projects of the 4th IABR: Open City, and part of its main exhibition Open City: Designing Coexistence.
Refuge called attention to how displacement, whether because people flock to the city because of hunger, poverty or war, produces spaces that range from luxurious gated communities to overcrowded slums, and how these are all threats to urbanity and to the ideal of the Open City.
After the 4th IABR, in the Spring of 2010, Refuge was exhibited in Istanbul, at DEPO
clash of agendas
Refuge involved an intensive knowledge exchange process among designers, academics, and administrators from Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Istanbul, organized by the IABR through 2009 and 2010. One of the participants was the Municipality of Arnavutköy –situated in the north of the European side of the metropolis and bordering the Black Sea. This area, still very green, is covered by water reservoirs and farmland that are of great significance to the city. But its ecological functions are under constant and momentous pressure as a result of sprawling urbanization.
It was immediately clear that Arnavutköy is exemplary for the tremendous challenges that Istanbul, just like many other large urban regions everywhere in the world, is now facing: how to match the political ecological, economic and demographic agendas in such a way as to create a resilient city ready for the 21st century?
picture: George Brugmans
That Arnavutköy in 2013 became the area on which a new and huge airport, a new superhighway and a new canal connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, were to be parachuted by the central authorities in Ankara, only proved the point. With Istanbul yet again at the crossroads Arnavutköy clearly is one of the main battlegrounds for these clashing agendas.
local curator
In 2010 the IABR appointed Asu Aksoy, Associate Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, to the Curator Team of the 5th IABR, and she became the local curator of the new IABR Test Site Istanbul.
This decision marked IABR's intention to actively engage itself in the debate about and the making of the city of Istanbul. The first action taken on the Test Site was the set up, together with the municipality of Arnavutköy, of the Atelier Istanbul.
Curator Team
Asu Aksoy (Istanbul, TR), George Brugmans (Amsterdam, NL), Joachim Declerck (Brussels, BE), Fernando de Mello Franco (São Paulo, BR), Henk Ovink (The Hague, NL) and ZUS (Rotterdam, NL)
Curator Team 5th IABR
(from left to right: Brugmans, Aksoy, Declerck, Ovink, Koreman, De Mello Franco and Van Boxel)
Director
George Brugmans
Opening
19 April 2012, by Melanie Schultz van Hagen, minister of Infrastructure and the Environment, and Ahmed Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam
Exhibitions
Making City
curator: Joachim Declerck
location: NAI, Rotterdam
Smart Cities - Parallel Cases 2
curators: Stefan Bendiks, Rogier van den Berg, Matthijs de Boer, Annet Ritsema
location: NAI, Rotterdam
Test Site Rotterdam
curator: ZUS (Elma van Boxel, Kristian Koreman)
location: Rotterdam Central District
Making Douala 2007 - 2013
curators: Marilyn Douala-Bell, Didier Schaub, Xandra Nibbeling, Kamiel Verschuren, Lucas Grandin
location: RiverClub Gallery, Rotterdam
Design as Politics
curator: Wouter van Stiphout
location: Mini Mall, Hofbogen, Rotterdam
Making Almere
curator: INTI
location: Belfort 13, Almere
Making City São Paulo, Da Cidade Informal aos Novos Bairros
curator: Elisabete França
location: Museu da Casa Brasileira, São Paulo
Making City Istanbul
curators: Asu Aksoy, George Brugmans, Joachim Declerck
location: Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, main exhibition 1st Istanbul Design Biennale
April 2012 – December 2012
133.600 visitors
Events
Urban Summit
51 lectures, debates, screenings, workshops and other events
VPRO: The City Forever
a full week of television and radio programming watched and tuned into by 2,8 million people
projectmanagement: Wim Schepens
publications and documentaries
Making City, 5e IABR 2012, Catalogue
George Brugmans, Jan Willem Petersen (ed)
2012, IABR
The Future Agenda
George Brugmans, Joachim Declerck, Henk Ovink
in: Megacities, Exploring a Sustainable Future
Steef Buijs, Wendy Tan, Devisari Tunas (ed)
2010, 010 Publishers
Rotterdam - People Make the Inner City
2012, Municipality of Rotterdam
Designing Olympics
Daniël de Groot, Willemieke Hornis, Elien Wierenga (ed)
2012, 010 Publishers
Olympic Cities
XLM Architecture Research Urbanism
2012, XLM
The Netherlands in Projects
Jelte Boeijenga, Paul Gerretsen, Elien Wierenga (ed)
2013, 010 Publishers
Sürdürülebilir Kent Yapmak/Making a Sustainable City: The Arnavutköy Approach
Asu Aksoy, Gülnur Kadayifçi, Hülya Yalçin (ed)
2012, Municipality of Arnavutköy & IABR
Sürdürülebilir Kent Yapmak/Perspectives from Turkey on Sustainable City Making
Asu Aksoy, Gülnur Kadayifçi, Hülya Yalçin (ed)
2012, Municipality of Arnavutköy & IABR
900 Km Nile City: A Strategic Design for a Rural Metropolis
Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Oliver Thill (ed)
2009, The Berlage Institute Research Report No. 31
Making Douala 2007 - 2013
Xandra Nibbeling, Kamiel Verschuren (ed)
2012, Doual'Art & ICU Art Projects Foundation
The River Cities Project: IABR Catalogue
Michael Speaks, Angela Torchio (ed)
2012, University of Kentucky
Typology. Hong Kong, Rome, New York, Buenos Aires
Emanuel Christ, Christoph Gantenbein (red)
2012, ETH Zürich
Posconflicto Laboratory: Making City + Productive Housing Programm in Guatemala & Central America
Urbanistica–Taller del Espacio Publico, Municipality of Guatemala & Asociacion Centroamericana Taller de Arquitectura
2012
Making Cities
director: Alexander Oey
VPRO Tegenlicht in coproduction with IABR
