The historic transformation of Bankalar Avenue and a survey of the physical and functional attributes of office buildings

Office buildings play a fundamental role in determining productivity, and thus affect the health of a nation or city?s economy. As such, they figure heavily into cities? planning policies, and further affect, as they have done throughout history, the way cities grow and develop.The Bankalar Avenue, located in Istanbul?s Galata District, is a case in point. Being the crux of modern Western working culture in nineteenth-century Istanbul, it is a living record of the development of office spaces in Istanbul.The first two chapters of this study are devoted to a survey of the social, political and economical conditions prevalent in nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire and the urban transformation of Istanbul in the same period. Chapter 3 traces the development of the modern office both globally and locally. Chapter 4 focuses on the importance of Bankalar Avenue, and, through detailed analyses, traces the construction of the buildings on the avenue, various projects developed for the avenue, changes in function undergone by different buildings, and their current uses. Chapter 5 deals with the spatial morphology of individual buildings and attempts to derive an office typology, through which the affect of Bankalar Avenue on the development of offices in Istanbul in general is investigated.Symbolizing, as it does, the transition from Ottoman business spaces (which were hans, derived, typologically, from inns in which traveling merchants stayed) to Western office buildings, the Bankalar Avenue has slowly ceded its role as the central business district to newer areas. But new uses which have begun to take hold in the area?such as cultural and touristic activities, seem to ensure the viability of the buildings on Bankalar Avenue, and ultimately the preservation and sustainibility of this street.