{"id":5875,"date":"2011-05-12T00:05:31","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T04:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingottawa.ca\/?p=5875"},"modified":"2013-01-21T09:07:21","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T14:07:21","slug":"doucet-letter-from-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/05\/12\/doucet-letter-from-istanbul\/","title":{"rendered":"DOUCET: Letter from Istanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Streetcar platform, Istanbul - photo by Clive Doucet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The new experiences rain down on me so quick and fast, it is hard to know just what to say or where to start, but as I\u2019m writing for Spacing, a blog concerned with urban landscapes, let me start with the landscape of Constantinople, a.k.a. Istanbul. It is magnificent. I\u2019ve never seen anything quite like it, nor do I think there is. The city is built directly up from the sides of the Bosphorus and the city\u2019s harbour, the Golden Horn, an indentation of the Bosphorous is so broad and deep it looks more like a river.<\/p>\n

Ships from all over the world constantly sail by as if the Bosphorus was no different than a busy highway, yet it is not as the many fishermen attest who fish from the boardwalk beside it. The Bosphorus is intimate and lively with small sailing and fishing boats and at the same time it is imposing with the an endless line up of the world\u2019s floating monsters. To give some idea of scale, the Bosphorus makes New York City\u2019s harbour look like a country lane and yet the human use and scale is never lost. The people of the city use it from sunrise to sunset. We ate red mullet for supper that had been swimming in the waters a few hours before.<\/p>\n

What else? The museums, mosques and public spaces are thrilling. Seeing rooms of statues from Greco-Roman times gave me a whole new idea in just an hour of the role and importance of sculptures in the ancient world. Until that moment, I had never understood that the Greek and Romans carved statues, the way we take photographs. It wasn\u2019t just emperors. It was actors with their masks still on, famous gladiators, beloved wives and daughters, administrators, businessmen, ordinary soldiers, obscure but favourite Gods. The whole panoply of ancient life can be found in those rooms of sculptures at Istanbul\u2019s national archaeology museum.<\/p>\n

If I were to draw three very quick lessons from Istanbul for the city for Ottawa, they would be these: 1) Preserve your public spaces. Istanbul\u2019s Hippodrome, a vast public walking space in the city centre is currently being re-cobbled by city workers and has existed since the time of the Romans. No one has thought it would be a great idea to sell it to a developer. 2) Do not be afraid to convert beautiful private or religious buildings into museums. The Aya Sophia is now a museum as is the Topkapi Palace. People love the \u2018real thing\u2019 not some Disney mock-up. The Topkapi Palace when I visited it was filled with Turkish tourists enjoying the vivid reality of their city and nation\u2019s past. 3) Invest in public transit. Istanbul has both the oldest and most modern streetcar system in the world beginning in 1875 and most recently investing in an underground system from the city centre all the way to the airport.<\/p>\n

It was heart breaking to see \u2018trams\u2019 very similar to our O-Train whisking through the city centre carrying thousands of passengers when I know our city could have gone the same route, but also exciting. A city that is succeeding always fills my heart with joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new experiences rain down on me so quick and fast, it is hard to know just what to say or where to start, but as I\u2019m writing for Spacing, a blog concerned with urban landscapes, let me start with the landscape of Constantinople, a.k.a. Istanbul. It is magnificent. I\u2019ve never seen anything quite likeContinue reading “DOUCET: Letter from Istanbul”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5302,373],"tags":[3404,817,485,3403,3406,1105,394,3405],"class_list":["post-5875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-transit","tag-businessmen","tag-clive-doucet","tag-clive-doucet-on-cities","tag-istanbul","tag-istanbuls-hippodrome","tag-new-york-city","tag-ottawa","tag-topkapi-palace"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDOUCET: Letter from Istanbul - Spacing Ottawa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/05\/12\/doucet-letter-from-istanbul\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DOUCET: Letter from Istanbul - Spacing Ottawa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The new experiences rain down on me so quick and fast, it is hard to know just what to say or where to start, but as I\u2019m writing for Spacing, a blog concerned with urban landscapes, let me start with the landscape of Constantinople, a.k.a. 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