Planning as a tool for modernization in Turkey: The case of Hermann Jansen's plan for Mersin

Abstract

Early 20th century urban development plans and regulations as the culmination of the efforts made for the modernization of the cities constitute a special and substantive domain of focus for the historical analysis of cities in terms of understanding the nature and objectives of planning today. Yet, except for big cities such as Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir, Adana and Bursa, most of the cities in Turkey are not studied in depth within such a context. Unfortunately, those studies conducted for both big and small cities also do not properly explore the local socio-cultural and institutional atmosphere of the period, during which the respective plans were prepared. This paper partly fills these gaps by highlighting the inter-contextual and self-contextual characteristics of the planning efforts made for Mersin. Although the primary pursuit of this paper is to contextualize the planning efforts made for a mid-sized port city in the early 20th century in Turkey, it is also argued that a better understanding of urban transformation in Turkey during the respective period can be constructed through the illustrative case of Mersin that actually functions as a lens for the Turkish (port) cities which are not well-known. What is particularly evident from this historical inquiry is that Mersin reflects all the characteristics through which the leaders and intellectuals of the Republic of Turkey chose to modernize the cities in the country during the early years of the Republic.