The remaking of Istanbul: portrait of an Ottoman city in the nineteenth century

During the 19th century a concerted effort was made to transform the Ottoman city of Istanbul into a Western-style capital, paralleling the struggle to salvage the Ottoman Empire by reforming its traditional institutions. This book examines changes in the form of the city between 1938 and 1908, namely from the Anglo-Turkish commercial treaty which opened the empire to foreign capital, to the Young Turk Revolution. Successive chapters explore: the historical background to the city's form; socio-economic processes of modernisation, the impact of Western urban design models as manifested in neighbourhood replacement following many fires, the insertion of wide routeways and the renovation of the waterfront; novel but unrealized projects for massive urban change; stylistic pluralism in the architectural scene; and the significance of 19th century changes for the profound urban challenges of present-day Istanbul. -after Author