Speaker
Description
“Walking is a creative act, not a going back and forth between two distances. It is both a retreat into our own solitude and a rising up that will transform us as a society” (Gros, F., 2008), which, when considered together with the city, points to the potential for people to transform the act of walking into an activity that includes other roles and layers in urban space. In 2021, with the support of the SALT Research Fund, the aim of the “Antakya Walkable Urban History Guide” was defined as experiencing the historical layers of the ancient city through walks with participants in the historical center of Antakya, thus getting to know and love the buildings and the history of the city, and supporting the creation of a spontaneous state of “preservation” in Antakya. The study, which was prepared with an approach that considers the act of walking as a means of linking the past and the present city in answering a simple and fundamental question such as “How can we connect the past and the present?”, defined walking, which is among the most consistent, continuous and compulsory actions of human beings from the past to the present, as the most natural and unique means of tracing the traces of the past during our observations while walking in today's city. However, the fact that the built environment of Antakya was largely destroyed by the February 6 earthquakes and the state of the historical city center, which has largely moved away from its state in memories after the debris removal processes, made it necessary for the walks to take on a different meaning and role; to remember the past, to fix our memories and the places of our memories in our memory, and to continue these walks until these structures are visible in their original and memorable places. In the process of restoring Antakya with all its layers and components, coming together with the local people both physically and digitally, sharing information about what came before the “lost” or “wounded” fabric, recording the memories of the local people that are integrated with these buildings (and have become a part of them), and looking for ways to “look at the wreckage - and the void left behind - and see Antakya” while walking the streets together formed the backbone of the next process. Because this ancient city, which has been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt in the same location, can only be healed and restored with its population, culture, remembrance, and beautiful buildings recalled from history (and now from pre-earthquake times). In the Antakya Walkable History Tours, which took place three times after the earthquake in July, September and November 2024, the gaps, restoration and reconstruction processes and the traces of historical buildings left behind after the debris removal process of Antakya were experienced by walking together, and these walks supported the sharing of the memories of the participants from before the earthquake, the multi-layeredness of the historical center of Antakya before and after the earthquake, the urban memory and the sense of “belonging”. In this paper, the role of “Walkable History”, which is only one of the studies on the history of Antakya before the earthquake, in repairing and healing the damages caused by earthquakes, in terms of repairing the most necessary thing to be repaired; the soul of the local people.
References
Tezer, T. (2019) Yerleşme Tarihi Çalışmaları İçin Bir Çerçeve: Antakya Örneği”, Doktora Tezi, MSGSÜ
Tezer, T. (2023) Antakya’nın 1910-1960 döneminde kamusal mekânının değişimi, UPorto, 2219 TÜBİTAK (2021) araştırma raporu
Cumhurbaşkanlığı Strateji ve Bütçe Başkanlığı (2023) 2023 Kahramanmaraş ve Hatay Depremleri Raporu
TMMOB Mimarlar Odası Hatay Şubesi (2023) 6 ve 20 Şubat 2023 Depremleri Hatay Değerlendirme Raporu
TMMOB (2023) TMMOB Kahramanmaraş Depremleri Raporu
Tezer, T. (2024) “Sonra Birçok Şey Oldu, Ama Hiçbir Şey Olmadı”, Fayn
Tezer, T. (2024) “Antakya’da deprem: önce, bugün, sonra”, Nehna
Tezer, T. (2024) “Uzun bir yılın ardından: 6 Şubat”, Bantmag
Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı (2023)
Tezer, T. (2023) Antakya'nın tarihini adımlamak: Önce | Sonra -Depremden sonra "Antakya Yürünebilir Kent Tarihi Rehberi", Salt Online
Tezer, T. (2023) Antakya unutulmasın diye…, Argonotlar
| Keywords | Walkable History, Antakya, February 6 Earthquakes, City Memory, Recovery |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
