Historical origins of urban form: Causes, processes and effects shaping physical space in Suriçi, İstanbul

The settlements established from the period when human beings settled down to the present day have developed and changed in line with the relation between human behavior and needs and the natural characteristics of the place on which these settlements are located. This relation between man and natural space has led to the emergence of many diverse and multi-layered physical spaces. It is a reasonable presupposition that the multi-layered structure of physical space fiction and its relation with human and nature can be understood and/or associated with morphological analysis. However, when going backwards in time, questioning the relation between the remnant of the physical space from the past, that is, the historical texture of the city and the effects that shape this texture, brings with it the necessity of doing different and more diverse studies than the usual morphological analyzes. Questioned here; It is not the relation between the existing physical space and the existing social and natural structure, but the processes and effects that shape the physical space. Does the historical past, the past of a place, create a formal accumulation? If there is such an accumulation, where and how can this accumulation be read? While seeking answers to these questions within the scope of this thesis, in which the formal origins of physical space are investigated, information about the urban past of the Istanbul Suriçi region, which was chosen as a sample study area, and methods to reach this information were produced. The development and change that Suriçi has followed in various morphological layers over a wide period of time, from its establishment as a "city" to the present, has been investigated. As a result of multi-layered and multi-parameter morphological analyzes, which processes and which effects shaped the existing physical space were examined. At the same time, the functionality and the possibilities of the proposed methods for reading the possible formal accumulation of the city were tested. Based on the results obtained; Today's physical space fictions and the principles on which the planning understanding and methods that guide these fictions are based could be discussed from the perspective of the historical balance of the space. In other words; In what respect and to what extent the history of the city has an impact on the planning of the city, and the potential and/or necessity of the historical texture to be a starting point and a source of inspiration for today's urban planning practices.