Ankara Atatürk bulvarı üzerindeki kentsel parkların mekansal ve sosyal değişimleri

Urban parks are essential components of cities. They have ecological, recreational, aesthetic, economic, and social contributions to cities. Especially after the industrial revolution of the Western world, individuals needed urban parks in order to bond with the nature in their urban everyday life. Within the context of Ankara, urban parks have not been a part of social life until the republican era. In this period the major aim of building urban parks in the new Turkish capital was to maintain and symbolize the ideology of the new republic through creation of a modern urban spatiality. The first plans of Ankara made by Lörcher in 1924 and Jansen in 1928 had an inclusive green structure, which was unifying with the other parts of the city. This unified green structure designed by Jansen has been destroyed dramatically in time as it can be seen in 1957 Uybadin-Yücel Ankara development plan. Since Atatürk Boulevard, the main axis of the city, was suggested as the significant public space of Ankara, there located many urban parks of different scales and concepts near to it. This study examines past and current conditions of seven urban parks which are on Atatürk Boulevard. These are Gençlik Park, Abdi İpekçi Park, Zafer Park, Güven Park, Milli Egemenlik Park, Kuğulu Park, and Seğmenler Park. This research suggests parks as nodes in the city center of Ankara. Within this conception, morphologies, experiences and functions of the parks are studied in a comparative way.