​THE EMBRYO OF AN URBAN BACKBONE: THE ISTANBUL-LONDON ROAD

Year 2017, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 32 - 39, 01.03.2017

Erdem Üngür

Abstract

D-100 state highway still E-5 in everyday language which is remembered mostly due to traffic accidents was in fact an important transportation backbone and infrastructure investment, which totally changed the macroform of post-Prost Istanbul. D-100 highway was completed in 1973 with the opening of the Bosphorus Bridge and its connecting freeways; and actually after 1974 when the Halic Bridge was put into service. In accordance with the criticisms of urbanists and architects of that period in UCTEA Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects , the first bridge has created new demands and in 1988 second Bosphorus Bridge was opened. At the present time, the construction of third Bosphorus Bridge is finished and it's put into service. D-100 highway played an important role in the non-egalitarian, uncontrolled and uneven urbanization of Istanbul. Despite this consequence, the idea of an continuous automobile road between Asia and Europe had different motivations and different names in each period starting with 1930s: while the European countries were dreaming of an easy connection to their colonies, the new Republic of Turkey was requesting international recognition and also some income from tourism. During the Second World War, the highway Londra Asfaltı was important for military transportation and also as a residential device against a possible Nazi occupation. In 1950s rapid Americanisation of social life and modernization of agriculture, the highway Boulevard of Marshall or the New London Motorway+Ankara Motorway was an important integration element for domestic market and also symbol for a suburban life with individual automobiles. In this period the New London Highway was listed as part of European Road-5 in the 1950 Geneva Declaration on the Construction of Main International Traffic Arteries and at the same time performed as a land speculation device. In 1960s planned economic system “E-5” was designed and conceptualized as a transportation backbone, which was going to be used as a regional planning device. After 1975 AGR European Agreement on Main International Traffic Arteries and 1977 TEM Trans-European Motorways E-5 was abolished and became D-100. After 1980s D-100 was not a peripheral road anymore bu an internal congested road in the globalizing city of Istanbul. D-100 was conceptualized by Luigi Piccinato both during the planning process in İller Bankası 1958 and also in the 1967 report of Great Istanbul Master Plan as a “backbone” colonne vertébrale bordering the city as a peripheral road and also connecting it to the surrounding territories to create an open modern city plan. Following this organicist metaphor, this paper will briefly investigate the change of the London Motorway as an embryo in Istanbul during 1930-1960

Keywords

London-Istanbul Highway, E-5, D-100, urbanization, modernization, Turkey

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