Culture-led regeneration potential and problems of industrial heritage buildings: Case of new city center of Izmir

While the process of deindustrialization and globalization under neoliberal policies cause the manufacturing activities in cities to move to locations where labor costs are low and where the non-residential and industrial areas of Fordist production no longer come to the forefront with their value of use and labor, but rather the value of their economic inputs due to efforts for integrating competitive cities into the global network. Although these buildings are located especially in central areas, they altogether constitute an important image of the city as indicators of industrial and economic development. As result of changing economic policies and approaches, many industrial heritage buildings have been destroyed despite being protected by the conservation board in the concern of rent, which is the most important weapon of neoliberal policies in the city. Although there is a growing consensus on why industrial heritage should be protected in Turkey, there are deficiencies in how and by whom it should be protected. Making accurate determinations based on good examples will shed light on their possible convertion into such uses that can keep these important city images alive without losing their character. While the Izmir rear-port area is a historical and cultural focus where many different industrial buildings coexist, the main approach of the research focuses on the potential of the cultural industry, the conservation, re-use and evaluation of the transformation potentials of these areas. It is necessary to understand how the conservation and re-use processes in the area within boundaries of Izmir's new city center are taken into account by different initiatives, to determine the potential of these areas and the risks they may encounter by examining success and failure criteria through the examples of the world and Turkey. In this context, it is of great importance to examine the different buildings, to examine the historical development and to investigate the institutionalization processes under current legislative framework.