Re-Assessing Hagia Sophia and Istanbul Land Walls through the Lens of Cultural Landscape Concept
Abstract
Istanbul Historic Peninsula hosts diverse cultural heritage values that represent overlapping cultural layers lasting from the Ancient Greek city of Byzantion to the present city. This study examines the contribution of cultural landscape and historic urban landscape approaches to the conservation of heritage values in the Istanbul Historic Peninsula. Two of four UNESCO World Heritage sites, Hagia Sophia and Istanbul Land Walls are selected as case studies that are the architectural and urban scale components of the city’s image. This study aims to attribute to the world heritage sites of Hagia Sophia and Land Walls, which face the risk of loss of authenticity, integrity and outstanding universal value, the concept of cultural landscape, which enables the holistic and sustainable protection of the values and components of these sites. This study reveals the changing and continuing values of which are overlapped on a monument and a site.
Keywords
Cultural landscape, historic urban landscape, risks, integrity, Istanbul World Heritage Sites.
Thanks
This paper is based on an assignment presented in a PhD course which is titled “Cultural Landscapes: Strategies for recognising protecting and conserving the cultural heritage” and is organised by Assoc. Prof. Antonello Alici, in History of Architecture from Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile Edile e di Architettura, Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona/Italy in May/June 2020. The authors prepared this paper after discussing and developing the content of presentation. They thank to Prof. Alici for his valuable time and recommendations on writing process.
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