Morphological examination of Bahçeşehir settlement in Istanbul

Within the scope of this study, a spatial reading was conducted regarding Istanbul/Bahçeşehir settlement by using the urban morphology method over the concept garden city. Four main sections constitute background of the study. These are conceptual extensions, urban morphology as a method, introduction of Istanbul/Bahçeşehir settlement, which is the area of examination and analysis of Bahçeşehir settlement via the urban morphology method.The section conceptual extensions constitutes ideational background of the study. In this section, first of all, the reasons of formation of countryside/urbanside settlements in historical process were touched upon as solution offers towards problems experienced in urban locations. As a trend created in the 19th century, ?the garden city movement? was explained based on Ebenezer Howard?s narration and diagrams in his work titled Garden Cities of Tomorrow. Then, settlements designed and implemented under the influence of the trend garden city were introduced. Their morphologies were examined over plans belonging to settlements. In the second main heading of this section, suburbanization was discussed in the context of historical development of housing production. In this discussion, the goal is to mention housing development in the world and in Turkey and question the formation process of suburbs built on the fringes of cities.In the section urban morphology, the objective of urban morphology, which was selected as the study method, morphologic components of city, principles of morphologic research, the reasons of making morphologic research and schools that steer urban morphology were explained.In the section, in which Istanbul/Bahçeşehir settlement that was selected as the study area is introduced, physical data belonging to the area were mentioned; factors that played a role in the process of transforming the region into Bahçeşehir settlement, planning process and principles based on in planning were touched on. How the concept ?garden city? evolved in different places under the influence of variables such as time, geography, society was questioned. During this examination, advertisement and promotional texts of Istanbul/Bahçeşehir settlement were also utilized.In the section of the analysis of Bahçeşehir via the urban morphology method, analyses of land use and street/avenue typology were conducted, these analyses were expressed visually and explained with written text. Analyses were detailed by separating Bahçeşehir into stages and sub-regions.Key Words: garden city, urban morphology