Enmeshed Experience in Architecture: Understanding the Affordances of the Old Galata Bridge in Istanbul

Abstract

Today phenomenology points out the ways for a ‘return to experience’ in architecture emphasizing spatiality which is the primary condition of all lived-world. Understanding the spatiality as a complex interlocking of time, space, culture, material, detail and way of life gives rise to the “whole” pattern involving interwoven network relations. This whole pattern can be grasped throughout the enmeshed experience which makes it possible to be in constant dialogue and interaction with the narrative space. Considering architecture as a narrative space also engender the different ways of seeing, of reading from an interpretive frame with our entire bodily experience. In doing so, it is possible to touch, behold its spatiality in which cultural, political, economic, psychological and social dynamics are meshed as a whole. In this paper, the term of enmeshed experience will be introduced considering the intervention of the Old Galata Bridge at length, some notions such as multiplicity, becoming, production of sensation, duration, spatio-temporal experience, complexity and legibility. As a result, enmeshed experience points out the ways to grasp the remarkable, inexhaustible range of possibilities for future regeneration projects.