Ottoman urban projects to be aired

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

The Turkish Historical Society (TTK) gets ready to unveil Ottoman-period innovative urban projects that were not completed in their time. DAILY NEWS photo

Ottoman-period innovative urban projects that were not completed in their time will be brought to light in a documentary to be filmed by the Turkish Historical Society (TTK).

Approximately 40 land planning projects, most of which were developed during the reign of the last Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II, will be displayed in the “Ottoman’s Lost Projects” documentary.

The 13-episode documentary will contain archived photographs and footage of these incomplete projects, as well as documents, drawings, models and 3D animations related to them.

“We wanted to remind that the Ottoman rulers were following technology closely and even attempted to construct bridge, tunnel and metro systems, but couldn’t complete these for some reasons,” TTK Chairman Metin Hülagü told Anadolu Agency yesterday.

Hülagü says this documentary, which includes innovative transportation projects as well as plans of urban projects like Miniaturk and Gezi Park, will be both an opportunity to remember the past and be a display of the horizon of the historical rulers’ plans for the country.

“We will reveal if they [the past rulers] were open to the west or not? How was their relationship with technology? Were they thinking about the welfare of the people or were they sitting in their palaces? Moreover, if they mean something today, we will bring light to their realizations,” he said.

Recalling there were a lot of metro designs projected by the local and foreign engineers during the Ottoman period, Hülagü said most of the plans that could not be finished then are being completed in different forms today.

During the Ottoman times, in addition to projects that would ease intra-city transportation, urban planning projects were also considered important, he said.

The erection of a monument to commemorate a triumph against the Greeks, the establishment of Gezi Park and the Panorama History Museum were created by the Ottoman figure Ahmet Rıfkı Bey, and are among the urban projects, he said.

Miniatürk, Turkey’s first miniature park, was first imagined by Ottoman statesman Münif Paşa in the late 19th century, even though it was founded in Istanbul recently in 2003.