Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Decades after the post-structuralist, Marxist, and postmodernist critiques of power, architects and planners continue to play a role in assimilating and, sometimes, marginalizing the population through the production of space. Governments and powerful individuals use architects to shape spaces that reproduce economic and social hegemony. Furthermore, architects are uncritically participating in spatial productions that directly benefit authoritarian regimes. An example of this is the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s urban transformations of Istanbul and Ankara. His regime is consolidating power through an intricate process that strips urban squatters (called gecekondulu in Turkey) of their way of life, agency, and social capital. This process is being repeated throughout the world with little meaningful response from design professionals. What can architects and planners learn from this phenomena of repression and cooptation through spatial production? How can this knowledge be used to form an effective theory toward creating a socially just constructed environment? To answer this question, I use data collected from ethnographic field work in Ankara, Turkey to synthesize theories of architectural ethics and social movements. Gecekondu dwellers in Turkey use every day tactics to resist the demolition of their neighborhoods. However, the government ultimately prevails through sustained repression through demolition and cooptation through economic incentives. Architects and planners could confront this form of repression by developing an ethical framework for professional practice that operationalizes gecekondu resident’s every day, mundane tactics and discourages professionals from participating in repression and cooptation.