Beyazıt Square is a prominent public space in Istanbul. It is renewed with the urban design project by Ali Kural and Deniz Çalış Kural of UrbAr Office for Urbanization and Architecture, and, opened to public on October 6, 2022.

Beyazıt Square is an urban heritage site with historic monuments. It bears physical and ideological imprints of the Byzantine Constantinople, Ottoman and Republican Istanbul. Yet, over time, it had fallen into despair. UrbAr redefines the Square as a new urban landscape reconnecting with rest of the city. The new project transforms the site from a place of controversy into an urban space of reconciliation and free speech. While protecting its urban memory, the Square now addresses contemporary needs and aesthetics, accommodating universal design standards. The design team’s groundbreaking discovery about the proportions of monuments in relation to the geometry of the open space is reflected with a new floor pattern. Principles on the conservation and restoration of urban heritage sites, mainly set by ICOMOS, are followed in the urban design project.

This book is a documentation of the Beyazıt Square Urban Design Project with photographs by David Sundberg of ESTO Photographics, NY. The article by Ali Kural and Deniz Çalış Kural introduces the project.

Ali Kural (BArch, METU; MAUD, Harvard GSD) is a practicing architect and urban designer, founder of UrbAr Office for Urbanization and Architecture. He works across diverse disciplines and scales of architecture, planning and urban design. B. Deniz Çalış Kural (MArch, Pratt; BArch and PhD, METU) is a Professor of Architecture at Istanbul Bilgi University. Her research focuses on the urban history of Istanbul and early modern landscape imagination(s) of the Mediterranean.