An analysis of heterotopic space: Hasanpaşa Gazhane, enlightening once again

Abstract

While architectural structures are being physically damaged over the years, they may also become functionally inadequate as a result of the change and de-velopment. At this point, re-functioning works transform these structures, which are valuable in terms of both social memory and cultural heritage, into structures that also respond to spatial needs. Factors that require re-functioning such as technological variables and societal changes that occur due to population growth are based on the differentiation in user needs. These changes do not always arise out of necessity, but sometimes they are necessary to create regional radical changes due to management strategies. Foucault talks about the concept of heterotopia in his work titled “Of other spaces”. The scope of these structures, in which the conflict of old and new is felt and unplanned energy is released, has been the subject of various studies and equivalence of various examples to the concept of heterotopia has been researched. This study was born from the idea that some re-functionalized buildings make user feel the old and new function at the same time, and in Foucault’s words, the user gets exposed to other space experience. As a sample, Hasanpaşa Gazhanesi, located in Kadıköy, was chosen to be examined. In the research, the findings were examined with hermeneutic method by using general resource search model and documentary resource search model, which are among the qualitative research methods. It is aimed to make ‘heterotopic’ evaluation of the chosen space and to examine the concept with concrete example. © 2022, Istanbul Teknik Universitesi, Faculty of Architecture. All rights reserved.