IN-PERSON ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

Urban design primarily transforms places of everyday life. Neither spectacular nor remarkable, these places possess a singular ontology and form a mundane urban heritage. This research focuses on the traces of vernacular use that constitute it. As inhabited spaces, they contain vernacular use values (Lacaze). They result from a process of sedimentation of material and immaterial traces produced by everyday vernacular uses (Illich), which contribute to the coming into being of space into place. Operating within a regime of rapid and institutionalised transformation, urban design often produces (partial) erasure and generates social and material ruptures in the continuity of vernacular human-material space relations. New Materialism and Actor Network Theory convincingly argue that (1) materiality holds stories (Hutton), (2) materiality is an active actor of a place (Bennett), and (3) humans and materiality are in constant exchange, shaping one another (Sennett; Farías). However, little research has explored how this body of knowledge can be applied into urban design practice, and how it might support a shift beyond participatory processes toward more socially just urban development and democratic urbanism. By holding stories of use and acting as an agent of social structures (Lefebvre), existing materiality could thus become a partner in discussions on what is maintained, transformed, or erased in urban design, and for whom. Moreover, such consideration contributes to debates on the sustainable transformation of the built environment, especially within the broader movement towards reuse and adaptative practices. Articulating philosophy of the vernacular, New Materialism, and critical heritage, and drawing on initial empirical material collected in Berlin, this contribution reflect on the role of the sedimentation of material and immaterial traces of vernacular uses in the constitution of urban heritage, and on its relevance as a subject of project in urban design.