Landmark Turkey – Why Ankara and Istanbul, a tower of conflicting Galata tower is one of the main attractions of Istanbul. Now the government requires in Ankara jurisdiction over the building because of an ambitious construction project.Tomas Avenarius of Istanbul0 comment image, such as from the Arabian nights: the Galata tower with the moon in Istanbul.Photo: Umit Bektas (Reuters)
Beautiful he really is. But massive and in the foundations of unshakable he is. The Galata tower with its three-metre-thick outer walls and its tin Gandalf hat has survived in the fifteen hundred years of its history, wars, sieges, conquests, earthquakes, fires, the plague and the invasion of the modern tourist hordes – until the Corona onset, they dedicated to him around the clock as the main supporting cast of true Selfie-orgies. Since the bulk of the building, which is the unofficial landmark of Istanbul will survive, probably even the bickering between the Ankara government and the municipal administration of the metropolis.
The Minister and his “culture street”
Though: Who is in the right in the dispute, is difficult to say. The Central government in Ankara, better, the Ministry of culture and tourism, said there is now at least on the upper supervision over the tower. The suing culture Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, although some time ago, and because he has big plans: “We’re preparing for a long time the project of a Beyoglu-the cultural road.” This Cultural route should not be opened by the new Galata-cruise ship port on the Bosphorus – yet, due to Corona – the Galata tower to the Taksim square, as the heart of the Nightlife district of Beyoglu lead. But then there was no talk for a long time more. Of the Minister, but the track of the year was expired, at the beginning, even personally, with media accompaniment. The Istanbul-based architecture critic and columnist Hakki Yirtici shows up today, quite surprised by the idea of a “culture street”: “Prior to the theatrical appearance of the Minister of culture at the beginning of the year, I had never heard of them before anything.”
The Galata tower itself is currently operated by the city of Istanbul. This is with the Central government, politically anyway, in almost all of the questions in the small war. The tower is for the city to be a tourist and financial gem of the balcony under the cone-shaped roof is considered the best vantage point over the city and the Bosphorus, and the sensational view makes up for the excruciatingly long wait at the foot of the nine-storey building and for the food in the tower restaurant. Around the tower, tea gardens, Restaurants and snack bars crowding the stalls, the hustle and bustle begins in the morning and ends well after midnight: The tower is a magnet for tourists. Anyway, he was in front of Corona. But even in a future with Social Distancing of the tower is likely to retain its attraction as a lookout and Selfie backdrop.
“Not a cosmopolitan space”
But the Galata tower is obviously the hinge piece in the ambitious plans of the Central government: it wants to create in the formerly European – dominated Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, a large, continuous culture and experience: a second of Istanbul, so in addition to the classic tourist destination in and around the main attractions, Hagia Sophia and blue mosque on the opposite shore of the Golden horn. And this is supposed to be of the tourist erlaufbar. From the Galata tower, the cultural road to go on to the pedestrian, Shopping, eating and cultural street Istiklal to Taksim square. At this place, which is considered the “heart of Turkey”, is currently being built already an ambitious Opera and culture house: The new Ataturk cultural centre will apparently form the heart and the completion of the new culture mile.
With the concept of culture is also in Istanbul stretchy: it is To be feared that it is not only culture, but also to consumption. Architecture critic Hakki Yirtici advance says: “This is not a cosmopolitan space, which is a route for tourist consumption.” The city government has anyway let the only just was prompt, the tower management immediately deliver, by a court of law on ice: The legal dispute could drag on for so.
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