Kentsel Tasarım Sürecinde Kamusal Sanatın Yeri: İstanbul’daki Mahalle Ve Semt Parkı Örnekleri

Abstract

1960’lı yıllarda “beyaz kutu” yani, galeri ve müzelerden kamusal alana çıkan sanat; kamusal sanat tanımı altında birleşen çeşitli malzeme, teknik ve biçimlerde yapılan bir çok sanat pratiğinde kendini göstermiştir. 1970’li yıllarla bereaber kamusal sanat, kentsel tasarımın bir parçası olarak görülmüş ve sanatçı, mekan tasarımcısı ile birlikte disiplinler arası çalışmaya başlamıştır. Kentsel tasarım içinde peyzaj tasarımından mimari eleman tasarımına, yerleştirmelerden kent mobilyaları veya yüzey tasarımlarına kadar bir çok türde ortaya çıkan kamusal sanat çalışmaları günümüzde çağın teknolojileri ve olanakları doğrultusunda farklı biçimlere bürünmekte ve tasarım sürecine konsept oluşumundan kentsel mekan bileşenlerine kadar sanatçı ile birlikte bir çok boyutta ele alınmaktadır. Ülkemizde ise; kentsel tasarım sürecine sanatçının katılım gösterdiği bu tür örnekler yeteri kadar hayat bulamamaktadır. Bu durum uygulama alanına da yansımakta ve kamusal alanlarda yer alan sanat çalışmalarının türleri, ifade biçimleri ve içerikleri açısından genellikle birbirine benzer, standart yaklaşımlar sergilediği görülmektedir. Ülkemizde kentsel tasarım sürecindeki sanatçı katılımına ve kamusal alanlardaki sanat uygulamalarına ilişkin bu tutum, tez çalışması için problem alanı olarak belirlenmiştir. Tez çalışmasının amacı; günümüzde dünya örneklerinde kentsel tasarım sürecine farklı katılımlar gösteren sanatçının ve kentsel tasarımın bir bileşeni olarak ele alınan kamusal sanatın ülkemizdeki tasarım sürecindeki yerini İstanbul örneği üzerinden tespit etmek ve gelişimi önündeki engelleri ortaya koymaktır. Bu amaçla geliştirilen tez çalışmasında, yerel yönetimler ve tasarım ofislerinin konuya ilişkin uygulama ve görüşlerini tespit etmek için aynı sorulardan hazırlanmış olan anket doğrultusunda yüzyüze görüşme yöntemi uygulanmıştır. Tez çalışmasının hedefi ise; parklarda yer alan kamusal sanat çalışmalarını dünya örnekleri ile karşılaştırarak ülkemizdeki kamusal alanda sanat olgusundan anlaşılan uygulamaları ortaya koymak ve dünyadaki çağdaş yaklaşımlarının neresinde olduğunu göstermektir. Bu hedef doğrultusunda; parklarda yer alan kamusal sanat çalışmalarının ortaya çıkma biçimleri, park mekanı ile kurduğu kavramsal ve yapısal ilişkiler (yere-özgülük, görülebilirlik, anlam bütünlüğü, konum ve mekana yayılım özellikleri) ve kamusal sanatın park tasarımında kullanım amacı araştırılmıştır. Tez çalışmasının bu hedefi ışığında ise arazi çalışmaları yapılmış, yerel yönetimlerin yetkili birimlerine hazırlanan anket ile yüzyüze görüşme yöntemi uygulanmıştır. Arazi çalışmaları ve yüzyüze görüşmeler ile elde edilen bulgular sonucunda tez çalışmasının hipotezi test edilmiştir. Sonuç olarak; “park alanları tasarımının yerel yönetim karar mekanizmaları ve proje müelliflerinin yönlendiriciliğinde olması nedeniyle sanatçının tasarım sürecine katılım düzeyi düşüktür” hipotezi doğrulanmıştır.

In 1960’s art has began to displayed in public spaces rather than galleries and museums called “white box”. When art has exhibited in public space, it has performed in various forms, techniques, materials and has the common name “public art”. Because of the strong physical, social, spatial relations that public art established through the site; it has brought the issue to be discussed by the study of urban sciences. In the field of urban design, public art is first discussed in terms of visual-aesthetic values of the city such as aesthetic elements, urban furnishings, architectural structures and surface elements etc. Through the cultural policies, public art has begun to be evaluated in the light of urban identity and urban image. Cultural policies lead public art to intervene the cities in the scale of master plans while undertaking a social aspect that allows society to participate in planning process. By discovery of public art’s transformative power in social, cultural and economic subjects of urban space, it has been used as a tool of urban transformation or urban renewal fields. Public art have been mainly addressed visual, social and individual-psychological dimensions in urban design theories and practices. The participation of artists in urban design process has first appeared through a public art fund called ‘percent for art’ program in accordance with the surfaces of architectural elements. Along with the development of this fund, artist has begun to take place in urban design and landscape design projects so that; designer, architect, landscape architect and artists have shared equal responsibilities. Public art firstly was seen as a decorative or ornamental elements in these projects and has gained weight as visual and aesthetic elements in urban design. Along with the development of site-specific concepts, public art works establishes a strong relationship with the place and its users, at the same time it has gained social meaning. Public art has its place in urban design such as city furniture, flooring, architectural structures, and installations; it has become the whole venue when urban space is designed by artist in the role of designer. Artist has been cooperated with landscape architect, botanist and scientist in technical and application subjects which has exhibited interdisciplinary studies. In addition, through ecological dimension of urban design not only artist provide communication between designers and scientists, but also transferred scientific studies to users and promote environmental awareness within society. Today, when looking at overseas examples of public art in urban design process, artist's have participated to undertake such tasks as creating the concept of the park, ensuring social participation and designing spatial elements. Public art ise being involved from the very beginning of the design process. Artists working with the design teams, have developing park concepts and public art works integrated to the space. Public art works that use all the possibilities of modern technology and received the emerging new techniques are developing. Lighting, laser show, sky sculptures, kinetic sculptures, installations associated with water and such many techniques and materials are used. In our country, public art has carried out in a manner that is remote from all these developments in the world. As of the 1970s, public art transit from monument art aesthetics to modern aesthetics and in 1990s it has began to establish ties with place. Public art installations organized by local governments with the only understanding of sculpture has been left by the end of 1990s. Biennials, Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Programme and public art activities organized by the local governments, art in public space has gained momentum. Unfortunately, Turkey could not catch up with developments in the world of public art for various reasons. The reasons for this is discussed as local and central political authorities and public view for art, lack of institutional and financial structures for public art at the level of central and local government that provide applicability to urban space, lack of plans, policies and legal regulations for public art, lack of civil initiatives to improve public art and artists’ behaviour of adhering to traditional methods for the practice of art in public space. The aim of thesis is to show artist participation in urban design process and public art practices in neighborhood and district parks of İstanbul in order to find out problems and obstacles in artist participation while explaining differant participation methods of artists in urban design practices and public art applications by comparing contemporary examples in the world. According to the aim of thesis; field studies in parks and questionnaires with the municipalities and design offices have been applied. The findings of the study were obtained as a result of face to face interviews with local governments and private agencies to determine the extent of the thesis about public art and artist's participation in urban design process. As a result of these findings; public art took part in thematic or cultural park projects for municipalities, however, it does in private offices for 15% of the total park projects. When looking at public art works in the area of parks, 31% of the works are included in park design processes which showes parallels with the answers of municipal and private offices. When comparing the findings between municipalities, private offices and public art practises in research areas; the most common method of artist's participation in design process is the ‘art item to order’ in observed. This reveals that artist is mostly considered in the role of craftsman. It showes the idea that any contribution of artist's own interpretation and creativity to improve the park aboute conceptual or structural design or to establish strong, creative and unique relationships within public art, place and its users, or to provide social communication with the local population is not expected. At the same time, this situation is resulted by similar forms and contents for public art works in parks such as sculptures of country's leading artists, athletes or leaders. Obstacles in artist participation in urban design process have revealed the same reasons by private offices and municipalities. All of the problems pointed out by private offices is approved by municipalities. Interrelated barriers for public art in urban design process is occured. Taken as a whole; the lack of advanced thought about art in public view, makes public art a controversial topic in society. Due to the political structures of municipalities, public art has became a serious concern. For these reasons, municipalities does not have objectives about investing and funding in public art. Therefore, except in thematic park projects, artist's participation in design process is not deemed necessary. At the end of the chain of reasons, the lack understanding of public art and artist participation in design process conducted at municipalities in Turkey is approved by both municipalities and private offices. Comparison of field work in parks with the world examples, public art works in our country are occurred in such a form that independent from place and its users in the understanding of modern sculpture. They are such an independent element of place and can not integrate with designed space. Therefore, oppositely to the highlighted qualities of site-specificity in overseas samples, they are mostly observed far from site-specific art work qualities. The situation of having low rate of site-specific qualities in public art works is mostly caused from the fact that 44% of them are not produced specifically for the park. Almost all of the public art works in parks are emerge in the type of installations of real and figurative properties. From a technological point of view, public art works exhibite traditional methods. Kinetic structure of abroad samples, water-light-interactive installations and different approaches demonstrating such as lighting and lasers with digital control; in our country the traditional understanding of sculpture continues contrary to the attitude of using new technologies. In line with these considerations, field studies through the example of Istanbul show the result of public art works in our country were behind many of the contemporary approaches. Hypothesis is tested with light of the findings in face to face interview and questionnaires. The hypothesis of dissertation is defined as; “because of the leading actors of municipalities and project authors, artist have a low participation in park designing”. As a result of the face to face (quastionnare) findings; decision makers on a public art work in park design process was revealed at 65% as municipality president and office manager. The artist, however, are involved by 17% in decision-making has found. In addition, the inclusion of public art into the design process in private firms are conducted at 38% independent from artists so that public art works, areas for public art and special event items are being developed by the designer. In terms of decision-making in the light of these data the hypothesis has been proven. The participation of artist in park design process is conducted by ‘art item to order’ method at 50% percent in municipalities, , 31% percent in private offices and 87% percent in public art applications in parks is found out. In terms of the level of participation of the artist in park design process, hypothesis has been proved. In order to improve artist and public art participation in urban design process and capture contemporary approaches in Turkey; a revision and a development of perspective in art through the community and local government is needed. Apart from these basic problem; to ensure public art participation and applications, administrative and financial regulation at the local and central level should be made. These regulations are widely applied in the world such as national fund for the arts or percent for arts tool which provide funds for public art from urban investments. An unbiased art commission which contains members from various occupational groups and represents the creation of autonomous professionals offering suggestions for public art practices in local government, making decisions, providing artists ideological and aesthetic autonomy and located between artists and local governments can be achieved. At the same time; civil organizations can work in transfering the private sector funds for the benefit of public and public art.