Traffic Islands and Istanbul

DENIZ ASLAN

In recent years, exaggerated landscaping of traffic islands with an ornamental understanding has normalized a kind of kitsch. So much so that other big cities across Turkey are searching for ways to create a similar perception fashioned after the Istanbul example. In truth, highway landscapes are areas not overly designed, economically sustainable and relatively endemic with self-supporting plants. Components of highways should not be distractive as they are tasked to produce perceptions on a kilometer basis, directing towards approaching changes like a fork in a road. Furthermore, the main point of the median strip is making the direction of the road intelligible in day time and at night, preventing the headlights of cars from causing disturbance on opposite lanes.

In last ten years, the real vegetable patterns of highways have been replaced with ready-cut grass or herbal parterres weaved as rugs or caricatured images like Maiden's Tower, with PVC joinery and graphical ornaments. This situation has led to a wrong public opinion on the role of landscape architects. This is crucial because landscape architecture is still in its early crawling stage in Turkey. When someone asks what to expect from a landscape architect, with these examples up front, the very understanding which once tried to bring the rural to the city is now presenting a world of ornament in the word of “landscape.” I strongly believe that this “ornament” view lands another major blow to the already immature perception of landscape architecture.

Attitudes as this one and similar others, manipulate the taste of town-dwellers and provoke the tawdriness. Ethical issues also emerge as a separate pack of problems. Hundreds of thousands square meters of grass are being replanted every year. Millions of seasonal plants must be replaced every year. In recent years, perennial plants have also begun to appear in this madness of pattern. They are planted in such way that they can't show their own individuality in living quarters. With this attitude, textures are being created without any knowledge of botanical sociology, degrading plants to mere decorative objects. Although it is said that bore water is used for irrigation, we are still facing a huge waste of water. Similar practices are seen in countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan or Dubai, as an extension of a culture enjoying showing off their richness, and are rather offensive to the eye.

When such course of events is explained by "But people like that!" kind of mentality, a new form of arabesque culture is in fact being gilded. This cheapened perception is damaging the communal taste as well as preventing the progress of landscape architecture. Instead of fostering nature, a clutter created by form, color and esthetical patterns is being imposed on the society as a communal service. In the end, the vulgarity which everyone got used to, presented as a new frame, spreads through Turkey, taking us further away from the world's norms.

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