Architecture of the City in the Post Urban Transformation

While scholars emphasize the importance of the role of the architect in shaping the urban fabric, they agree that in the contemporary city, s/he has to confront the "planned urbanism" dictated by top-down policies and the market realities. The paper aims at projecting into the city after Urban Transformation in Istanbul at the end of the first quarter of the 21st centuy. Will U.T. provide an innovative image to the city and enhance the building quality? The discussion of such questions will be carried through mostly the residential architecture, major zoning in the urban structure. Urban and architectural aesthetics can be adversely affected by relations between conflicting powers in the housing markets. The implementations of U.T raises two issues, namely, (1) is the value of the demolished building for the sake of architecture lost or diminished? (2) Does the demolition break neighborhood ties embedded in the culture, leading to disruption and alienation? Dweller. How can the architect resolve this dilemma? What are his design tools to intervene into the urban structure? A critical assessment of the legal, cultural and physical frame in the urban context is the main research approach, to be supported by project archives. In this paper, possible tools of the architect to lead U.T. will be explored to provide a few clues for further research.