URBAN TRANSFORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF THE BEYOGLU WATERFRONT IN ISTANBUL

Istanbul has an extended story to tell, but sometimes the idea of its urban development seems frozen to some specific passages in time, while, on the contrary, such an urban context is subject to a continuous transformation of its tissue, changing functions, behaviours, rules. The built heritage keeps on being exploited and reused, dragged in the contemporary age with alterations, superfetation demolitions. The actions of the people living and using the neighbourhoods sometimes cause the decay of a structure into a poorly used facility, sometimes it acts changing decay into opportunity, keeping somehow alive the place. In the case of the waterfront of the Beyoglu quarter, the use of 3D laser scanner for urban documentation allowed to capture a 3D model usable for investigations and understanding, working as a first central node in the interpretation of the complexity of a difficult mix of commercial activities, past abandoned industrial blocks and heritage. This research describes the main passages and activities aimed at the definition of possible guidelines for urban regeneration while preserving intangible heritage values, recognized as a richness for the community itself.