IN-PERSON ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

International conservation approaches indicate that the scale of areas requiring protection has expanded and that cultural systems which gain their value from historical, spatial, and functional relationships have been more important on the conservation agenda.Large-scale systems that combine tangible and intangible elements such as transportation, communication, and trade routes are sometimes described as “networks” in the literature due to their relational integrity. This definition shows a shift towards understanding heritage through the connections between elements rather than individual assets.Contemporary debates in the field of digital heritage reveal that heritage can be defined through processes and relationships even in cases where tangible and spatial traces have largely diminished; therefore, there is a need for strategies that focus not only on physical remains but also on relational aspects that can be made visible through digital methods.This assessment highlights a conservation gap in Law of 2863 on Conservation of Cultural and Natural Assets, which fails to offer a conceptual framework to define network-based heritage types which gain value from the connections between elements. Lack of recognition of these heritage types whose tangible traces are limited within the national framework is the main departure point of this study. This study examines how network-based heritage types that can be digitally represented despite the extensive loss of their tangible and spatial traces are addressed within Turkey’s legal framework, and presents a comparative evaluation based on a content analysis of national legislation and documents issued by UNESCO, ICOMOS and the Council of Europe. Existing studies on how digital mapping and multi-source data integration approaches are used in Türkiye and in transboundary heritage examples to which Turkey is a party are reviewed, and the practices for making these types of heritage visible have been analyzed.