Reclaiming the city square; social production of public space- Sultanahmet–Beyazit–Taksim Republican squares

The relation between city squares and public space has been in an adventure since the rise of the term "public" during the Ancient Era and the existence of Agora in Greek city-states for the very first time. In this adventure, city squares have witnessed everyday life practices and all the transformations of the societies to which they belong. Each square set on the city scale has been the stamp and the shadow of the representation of the power. City squares appear as political; whatever constitutes the power (here church and palace or bourgeoisie and aristocracy, there a dictator or capital) they have been under the domination of the power. Besides, it is a timeless fact, which has not changed from the Athenian Agora to Place de la Concorde. Contemporary social movements from the M-15 in Puerta del Sol Square – Madrid to the Egyptian Revolution in Tahrir Square – Cairo and to Occupy Gezi in Taksim Republican Square – Istanbul have been the reflections of this fact representing the similarities regarding their demands and their site selections; democracy and city squares. Whereas "public" spaces are described as highly democratic in the spatial sciences literature; "all places publicly owned or of public use, accessible and enjoyable by all for free and without profit motive including streets, open spaces and public facilities" (UN-Habitat, 2016). The problem description of this study emphasises the contradiction between the idealised definitions of public spaces and the actual experiences of them; social and actual production of public space does not overlap with idealised definitions of them from the domain of the spatial sciences. It has been envisaged that the concepts of democracy and city square should be brought side by side and making an inter-disciplinary interpretation thereof inevitably requires establishing a common ground between social and spatial sciences. Hence, the main motivation of this study as to bridge the gap between social and spatial sciences and to facilitate an inter-disciplinary approach that will enable the ground to better decode, design and defend the city squares. In accordance, the main aim of this study is to reveal the relation between the structural transformation of publicness in the sense of political representation and the spatial, functional and semantical evolution of the city squares. The most important contribution of this study to the city planning and urban design literature is to bring historical evolution of city squares up for discussion from the insights of both social and spatial sciences. The research questions in the context of this aim and motivation are as follows: (1) What are the relations in the discussions of the concept of publicness within the domains of social and spatial sciences? (2) How does the social production of representational spaces of the dominant and counter publics occur? (3) How has the city squares evolved throughout the history in the existence of transforming dominant and counter publics? In this context, (in Section 2) the discussions on the concept of "publicness" within the domains of spatial and social sciences are revealed based on the concepts of "public space" and "public sphere". Indeed, there are important differences in conceptualising "public" from the perspectives of social and spatial sciences which Iveson (2007:2-3) frames also as "procedural and topographical approaches". Topographical approaches frame "public" spatially, as "a specific kind of place" in a city which can be coloured on a given map as "public space". On the other hand, procedural approaches use the term "public" in reference to "any place" used for "collective action and debate". The definitions of "public sphere" enable the complex and dynamic structure of "publicness" to be operated and the struggles between different publics to be understood. In such an understanding, the entire world has been considered as a potential setting for expression. The conditions of social inequality indicate a mass of competing interest groups, which express the existences of "dominant publics" and "counter publics" that are born out of the struggles among "multi-publics" (Fraser, 1990). Here, it appears that struggles between dominant and counter publics, produce and re-produce the public sphere itself. The most important point here appears as the ignorance of spatial sciences that representation of the dominant requires the presence (access) of the other publics. In this sense, high degree of physical accessibility of any place also does not necessarily makes it "public". The simultaneous need for the absence and presence of other publics for the continuity of the representation of the dominant is explained by the "paradox of political representation". The only solution to the continuity of the domination in some kind of balance is explained as "non-objection criterion", which means "silence" (Pitkin, 1967 & Runciman, 2007). This theoretical discussion offers an idea about why city squares are closed for counter publics or "occupied". Since the act of "occupation" refers a temporary use of space, "occupy movements" could be consider as the temporary appearance of counter publics in "public" spaces. In order to understand the social production of "representational space" Harvey (2012) reminds Lefebvre's (1970) definition of heterotopia; "anomic groups construct heterotopic spaces, which are eventually reclaimed by the dominant praxis". Since this definition overlaps with former discussions, Lefebvre's multi-triads of spatiality have been reinterpreted and the concepts of isotopia and heteropia have been operationalised in order to offer answers to second research question. This re-interpretation revealed that what is lived, conceived, perceived in and on space does not overlap with each other; yet, they rather exist in tension with each other. This triad tension ends up with a dialectic tension between dominated/abstract space and appropriated/differential space in the capitalist mode of production, which indicates the social production of isotopias (of dominant publics) and heterotopias (of counter publics) and the spatialisation of the struggles between them. In order to elaborate the theoretical discussion with reflections on real cases, an original historical periodisation has been introduced in six phases each characterized by changing relation between "publicness" and "city square" offering examples from European cities in the period between Hellenistic times and today. The results of this historical periodisation that based on literature research and mapping methods are as follows: (1) As the origin of city squares, agora became important enough to be shaped within the conditions of democracy during the Hellenistic period of Western history. (2) Athenian (Direct) Democracy that shaped agora was based on having citizen rights and limited with the publicness of only young free male Greek citizens excluding women, slaves, old, children and foreign people. In other words, city squares have been restricted by the publicness of a limited spectrum of societies since their existence. (3) The more authoritarian governments get, the more exclusive publicness become for a greater spectrum of societies and the more glorious city squares become getting greater in size. (Differences become crystallized in the shifts from Roman Republic to Roman Empire or from feudal oligarchy to absolute monarchy.) (4) Spatial organizational practices have responded to the pragmatic demands of the power and have played an instrumental role in limiting publicness throughout history. (5) City squares have always been the spaces of struggles for both domination and involvement. (6) In contemporary conditions, city squares are dominated by the carriers of neoliberal urbanism and the paradoxical nature of representative democracy. In order to confirm and elaborate the results and not to fall in hasty generalisation; it has been deemed necessary to investigate the transformation of publicness and city squares together in one specific city throughout its own development history. In accordance, Sultanahmet, Beyazıt and Taksim Republican Squares of Istanbul have been investigated based on 1) literature survey 2) newspaper archives 3) mapping 4) in-depth interviews with professionals from the domain of spatial sciences in the period between Hellenistic times and today (in Section 4). Integrating the knowledge from the former discussions, in this section, an original historical periodisation has been offered in four phases again each characterized by changing relation between evolution of the cases and transformation of multi-publics that Istanbul has sheltered. The results are as follows: (1) Dominant representation does not always show itself at the conventional city squares; Hippodrome of Constantinople operated as a city square. (2) Although Atmeydanı remained as a left-over space under Ottoman rule, socio-spatial memory of Hippodrome survived and Atmeydanı of Ottoman Istanbul operated also as a city square. (3) Examples of both Hippodrome and Atmeydanı provide a definition of the city square as a socio-political fact beyond the conventional ones offered by spatial science studies, in the sense of the space dominated by the power. (4) Despite their various spatial characteristics, functional relations of city squares with surrounding commercial and governmental units etc., which are part of everyday life and their central locations, have been the absolute conditions in their existence. (5) Transportation Planning, which is considered as a field of technical sciences, becomes a sociological issue to the extent it blocks the appearances of different publics at the city squares (like in the examples of Beyazıt and Taksim Republican Squares). (6) The use of Taksim Republican Square during Gezi Park Occupy Movement appears as an example for the production of heterotopic (differential) spaces by counter publics that reclaimed by the dominant. (7) The use of Taksim Republican Square during Democracy Watch Rallies after the Military Coup Attempt of 15 July 2016 appears as an example for the spatial reflection of paradoxical nature of representative democracy. (8) Consideration of Yenikapı Event Site as a "city square" appears as the perfect example of the production of abstract space by unsignified, unrepresented and troubled democracy of today. This study offers an inter-disciplinary model integrating the knowledge from both the domains of social and spatial sciences. In addition, this study aims to draw attention to the importance of the socio-political dimension of spatial organization of city squares for further research studies and implementations.