This week, Osman Yozgat and Abdulbaki Demir have presented us İzmir. The fire was a great problem for İzmir since the Ottoman Period. The houses were made of wood because the material was easy to reach, easy to transport, and also it was cheap. But wooden buildings also mean fire. They can easily burn. And also the city fabric was very efficient for fire to spread. Houses were really close to each other. So people were demolishing some buildings to avoid the spread of fire and they were stocking up water in their roofs to be prepared for a possible fire.
There were lots of fires that occurred between 1742 and 1922 in İzmir, but the ones in 1922 were very damaging. It is called the Great Fire of İzmir. The fire started in the Armenian quarter. 200.000 people lost their houses, 2.000 of them died and 14.000 houses burned down. After this huge destruction, the city needs to be re-designed. Dangers and Proust were responsible for that. They have developed an urban plan for İzmir in 1924, in the early Republican Period. In that plan, the parcels were separated by roads, and these roads were reaching to the big squares and the port. There were big public squares designed for the city, like Konak Meydanı, Cumhuriyet Meydanı, and Gündoğdu Meydanı. Henri Prost has also prepared the first master plan for İstanbul. After Ankara became the capital city, İstanbul was in the shadow of Ankara. The population was decreasing. So there was a need for a plan to make İstanbul shiny again. Henri Proust designed the big roads and big squares in İstanbul too.
Fires are the disasters that literally erase the cities texture and history. Another big fire that we have seen in this course was the Great Fire of London. Both of the fires have wiped down the life in the city, so this means an opportunity to re-create the city. But the biggest difference between London and İzmir is this re-designing issue. London was not re-designed completely, the roads were the same but just bigger; so the network of the city was the same. But this was not the case for İzmir. The street layout has also changed, now there were wide roads and big avenues designed. I think both approaches have pros and cons. Erasing the texture of the city erases the urban memory also, the city becomes somewhere else; and it was hard for people to adjust to this new city when they don’t have navigations and such like we have today. But re-creating is also an opportunity to create a better and much-improved city. This means transforming the disaster into an advantage for a better city. So it can be debated which approach is better.
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