Evaluation of the changes in Meşrutiyet Street urban housing area from 19th century to present using the analytic method of city images

Istanbul is a world city with a multi-layered urban texture. Its historical urban textures have changed over time and sometimes have been destroyed. The urban areas created by the 19th century modernization period are the most prominent areas withholding a historical character in these days. In this thesis, it is aimed to measure the physical transformation and perceptibility of historical urban textures. The answer to the question about the extent to which social, cultural, economic and administrative factors affect urban spaces in the transformation of cities has been sought. For this purpose, urban image studies on the perception of the city formed the basis of the research method. While urban image studies provide information on the imageability of today's city, they are not powerful methods when creating projections for the past. For this reason, the study of "Image of The City" by Kevin Lynch was applied to the city image throughout history and was improved to allow analytical analysis. Meşrutiyet Street, Asmalımescit District in Beyoğlu, where the 19th century urban texture can be observed, was included in the study. It is known that this region gained a modern urban appearance with the development of new housing typologies in the second half of the 19th century. As a result of the analytical evaluations done since the 1850s, the imageability of the modernization period of Istanbul has been established. The results showed that the imageability of 19th century urban texture increased until the 1950s, and the imageability decreased from the 1950s to present day. As a result, analytical data and the social, cultural, economic and administrative environment after the modernization period were compared and it was proved that liberal policies, populist actions and the destruction of historical urban areas of the globalizing world accelerated.