BIG FISH EATS THE SMALL FISH;

URBAN RENEWAL IN ISTIKLAL STREET

AND THE CLOSURE OF THE SMALL
SHOPS
Abstract
This study aims at investigating the urban renewal of Istiklal Street as an outcome of the
government-led politics of Istanbul in order to advance the city to a global city status since
the 1980s. The renewal of the street which is one of the most unique venues of the city
affects the structure of the region not only spatially, but also socially and economically.
Focusing on the closure of the small shops as an inevitable result of the transformation, the
study especially analyzes the closure of two of them; Inci Patisserie and Robinson Crusoe 389
Book Store, as their closures have become too controversial.
.
Key words: Urban Renewal, Global Cıty, Istiklal Street, Shops, Incı Patisserie,Robinson Crusoe
389 Book Store

1. Introduction
Globalization, a particular explanation for the changes in the world's economic, political,
cultural and spatial dynamics and structures, has run all over the world since 1980's, affecting
the cities of not only developed countries but also developing countries. Sociologist Anthony
Giddens (1990, p. 64) states that globalization is "the intensification of worldwide social
relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events
occurring many miles away and vice versa". On the other hand, Manuel Castells (1996)
defines the term as the integration process of every individual and group around the earth
into a huge network -referred to as network society- through information infrastructure.
According to SaskiaSassen (2005, pp. 27-43), “global cities are where impacts of globalization
are most keenly felt and which also produce global control. They provide opportunities for
the study of local change linked to global change. Global processes impact the social structure
of cities, transforming the organization of labor, the distribution of wealth, class relations and
consumption, and bring about new social hierarchies and power relations”. The cities which
are trying to anchor themselves to the very competitive global system are in a transformation
period economically, socially and for sure spatially in order to compete with the others.
In that context, if the global city discourse is about a reproduction of the city in a
framework of processes of capitalist accumulation and mechanisms of neo-liberal politics, we
may argue that today's Istanbul is going ahead fast towards becoming one (Adanalı, 2011).
Being at the center of the capital flows that reach both the East and the West, and also an
economic and political center for both Turkey and the region, Istanbul seems to have the
potential to be a global city. Hence, the idea of Istanbul becoming a part of the global network
came into the agenda in the early 1980s. For this cause, local authorities put a lot of effort in
transforming Istanbul into an international trade, finance and culture center in Europe and
1
the Middle East (Isık, 2010). In that context, they have centered on an ambitious urban
renewal campaign which has significant reflections on the structure of the city in order to
advance Istanbul to a "global city" status for the recent decades. The urban space has
changed and the areas offering global lifestyles have created their own spaces within this
period. Many projects and plans are designed to accelerate Istanbul’s combination with the
global capital; hence, the city now acts as a charming new platform for the consumers of
global lifestyles. There are dozens of newly erected shopping malls, high-rise office buildings,
gated communities and mass housing settlements(Keyder, 1999). In addition to these, techno
parks and cruise harbors are being built and a very controversial new airport project and a
third bridge project over the Bosphorus are being carried out as a part of the urban renewal
experience of the city. Meanwhile, luxury hotels and world-class restaurants are being
opened one after another in order to attract tourists. International conferences, film festivals
and biennales are being organized as significant cultural attractions. In this sense, Beyoğlu
region and the historical peninsula have been gentrificated; in addition, the waterfront
around the Golden Horn has been rebuilt to create new spaces of leisure and culture.
According to these standards of city marketing within a global field of competitors,
ÇağlarKeyder (2009a, p.1) defines Istanbul’s preparations to anchor global networks as a
success story since it is a business platform for the transnational corporate elite as well as a
playing field for the cosmopolitan consumers of global lifestyles. But regarding the intense
transition of Istanbul, IpekAkpınar (2014, p.32) states that most of the ongoing urban renewal
process and the related projects which are the outcomes of the ad-hoc, spontaneous and
fragmented decisions are made without being discussed in an opaque environment. Hence,
both these projects, transition of the city and process itself have become highly controversial
topics for the intelligentsia, media and the society.
Istiklal Street (or Istiklal Avenue) is one of the significant historic city centres in Beyoğlu
region, where these impacts have taken their most intense and visible forms in Istanbul.
While the city has grown through the restructuring of the urban economy, social and spatial
reconstruction, and innovative transportation and communication technologies, Beyoğlu has
begun to gain a new characteristic. Government and municipality-led urban renewal projects
and investments to reconstruct the region have been attempted in this process (Ozus,
Dokmeci, 2005). The old residential area -Tarlabaşı- has been majorly resettled and the most
famous urban square of the city - Taksim Square- has been almost completely respatialized in
the recent years.
Since urban renewal has deeply affected Beyoğlu district, Istiklal Street has taken its share
from this transformation. As a consequence, the street which is the culture and
entertainment center of the city started to lose its old characteristic features and identity.
Nowadays, the street is in a new state of mind as a result of the municipality-led urban
renewal projects. As Kiger (2013) mentioned, lots of cultural assets of Istiklal Street that have
come to be associated with it were shut down as a result of this mentality. Especially the
small shops of Istiklal Street have been facing serious struggles; big brands are taking over the
street and as a result, rents are increasing significantly. It is clear that the political will wants
to change current small businesses with national or international chain stores in order to
make Istiklal Street a center of consumption that suits the global city discourse more than a
cultural one. Thereby, it is not difficult to claim that the historic originality of the street no
longer exists.
In this regard, the study discusses the effects of urban renewal process of Istanbul on
Istiklal Street regarding the attempts of the political power to catch the standards of a global
2
city and accordingly focuses on the closure of the small shops as one of the results of the
transition. The paper is structured twofold; the first section starts with a brief history of
Istiklal Street, Beyoğlu and dwells on the spatial and socio-cultural transition of the street
within years according to the significant/political tresholds, social/urban events and socio-
economical changes. Focusing on the recent attempts of the political will in order to
rearrange and integrate Istanbul in the global arena, the second part concentrates on the
urban renewal of the area from the 1980s on as a start of a critical correlation period.
Pointing out the shops aligning through both sides of the street, in the third section, the
paper traces the footprints of two of those which were not able to survive the urban change;
İnci Patisserie and Robinson Crusoe 389 Book Store, as their closures have become very
controversial. The conclusion part includes the outcomes of the study and suggestions for
further research.

2. A retrospective look at Istiklal Street and its' shops

An approximately 2 km-long pedestrian street that connects Tünel Square to Taksim
Square, İstiklal Street is located in Beyoğlu region (Beyoğlu Municipality, 2011). Being the
most famous avenue in Istanbul, there is always a constant flow of people on the street
during a 24-hour period due to the measures of the nonstop urban activity around. Therefore,
the population of the street hosts up to several millions of people during both daytime and
nighttime. Being a vibrant meeting point, the street is also a major venue for all kinds of
protests, parades, marches, public events, and social gatherings in the city.
Hereafter this section briefly presents a short history of the street and its region Beyoğlu,
underlying the significant spatial and socio-cultural transition within years and emphasizes
the formation of the first shops in order to shed light on the background of the closure of the
small shops.
Figure 1. Top view of Istiklal Street (Google Earth, 2015)

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 The establishment of foreign embassies along Istiklal Street, which was called Cadde-i
Kebir/Grand Rue de Pera in the Ottoman period-from the 17th century on, influenced the
development of the district to gain a Western identity. From the beginning of the 18th
century, Europeans and other minority groups started living around these embassies. The
district became a central area especially in the 19th century and intending to be a model of
urban planning for the rest of the city, urban reforms were exclusively concentrated in Pera –
former name of Beyoglu- (Akın, 2002 and Dokmeci and Çiraci, 1988). Since then, Pera has
gained the quality of being the “entertainment center” of Istanbul with its shops, restaurants,
patisseries, and cafes. It was also the “trade center” of the city with its trading houses and
bureaus as the indicators of contemporary urban life and space (Akın, 1994). Thereby, the
19th century should be underlined as the starting point of the construction of the first stores
in Cadde-i Kebir.
When the social life in Pera in the 19th century is observed, a rather rich perspective
appears in front of us. According to Akın, in those years theatre, concert, circus, carnival and
various feast events were organized in the region; inhabitants filled in theatres, cafes, beer
houses, confectionaries, restaurants, bars, parks, and gardens; meetings were held in hotels
and clubs (Akın, 2002, p.56). Therefore, due to these places that enlivened social relations,
the region was a spot where high society met to spend time and wandered by looking at shop
windows (Faroqhi, 2008). Akın lists these shops on Istiklal Street as textile shops, furniture
shops, perfumeries, hairdressers, florists, photograph studios, bookstores and printing shops
(Akın, 2002, pp.236-243).However, Yavuz Köse (2011, pp. 388-389) determines the large
shops which had the logic of “department store” and which emerged here through the end of
the 19th century as a symbol of modernization. For him, these stores influenced the
consumption and social attitudes of the inhabitants with their variety of products and spatial
designs.Within the axis of these developments, especially from the second half of the 19th
century on, it is clear that places opened in the region made a difference on not only built
environment but also daily life in the socio-cultural manner. Therefore, it will not be wrong to
state that this region offered a different city life than other regions of the city.
After the proclamation of the Turkish Republic, the name of the street was changed to
Istiklal (Independence) and gained a symbolic importance for creating a natural identity.
Istanbul lost its status as the capital; the embassies in Beyoğlu moved to Ankara; and the
minorities who worked with privilege in their vicinity also left. In fact, Istanbul symbolized the
corrupt Ottoman Empire as the old capital, but still, Beyoğlu kept its European character and
meaning as the symbol of modernity (Bartu, 1999).

Figure 2.Istiklal Street in 1920s, 1980s and 2000s(Oruc, 2014)(Asgul, n.d.) (Oruc, 2015)

Meanwhile, the increasing use of private automobiles day by day did not integrate with
the spatial texture of the city center in the 1950's, which were oriented towards pedestrians
4
and public transport. Hence, a remarkable spatial and social transformation was experienced
in the city, realizing activities such as widening of the streets, demolishing of old structures,
and constructing new buildings (Yada Akpınar, 2010). The social and physical infrastructure of
the city changed; projects such as Taksim Gezi Park, which caused the 2013 Gezi protests, and
Park No II, where Hilton hotel is located, were realized in this period (Unlu Yucesoy and
Guvenc, 2010).Another issue is that, in the 1950s, the population of Beyoğlu decreased
rapidly after the 6-7 September Case (1955). Later, Beyoğlu, which was once the reflection of
the Western culture, began to answer the need of cheap residence of the rural people who
immigrated to Istanbul (Dokmeci and Cıracı, 1988). Consequently, some of the luxury shops
left the street to a lot of low price shops and in the end Beyoğlu could not attract developers
because of its old urban structure (Arslan, 2012). Nevertheless, Beyoğlu still continued to be
the most prominent quarter of the city and Istiklal had been the prime shopping area of the
region until the 1960s (Yada Akpınar, 2010).

3.Correlating the global agenda after 1980s

In Turkey, which immediately affiliated to world capitalism after 1980, the pioneer of
globalization is İstanbul (Cavusoglu, 2010). In this period, an approach parallel to the global
inclinations and liberal policies of the world started to be followed in the city and it got
involved in a fast transformation (Keyder, 2009b). This transformation continuing in the city is
analyzed in 3 periods through Istiklal Street within the scope of the study. Especially, the
transformation experienced in the 1980s is read based on the works of the Mayor Bedrettin
Dalan, whereas in the second section, the spatial and socio-cultural interventions of the
Islamist party which won the elections for the first time are mentioned. Finally, experiences
within the scope of the transformation motto of the Istanbul of 2000's, "beautifying Istanbul
and glorifying its Ottoman past" are put forward.

3.1. Beyoğlu as a place that should be rehabilitated in 1980's

Especially with the series of urban renewal projects administered by the metropolitan
Major Dalan, large-scale projects spurred the uncontrolled development of the city
(Turan,2011). For the major, Beyoğlu was a place that should be rehabilitated and partially
demolished. So, in order to transform the city into a "worldcity" and to increase the
attractiveness of the area, new cafes, restaurants, hotels, cultural buildings, art galleries,
bookstores and theaters were opened (Ozus and Dokmeci, 2005).As part of the
transformation of Beyoğlu, the Association of Beautification and Preservation of Beyoğlu was
established in 1985. The emphasis of the organization was mainly on creating socio-cultural
activities. The effects of the preservation plan in 1986 directly led to the widening of Tarlabaşı
Avenue in 1988 and the pedestrianisation of Istiklal Avenue in 1990. These measures were
taken to improve the attractiveness of the area and to embellish the business sector as well
as to attract more tourists. After many attempts, in 1993, the area was declared to be an
urban heritage zone and Istiklal Street was pedestrianised (Ozus et al., 2012). The identity of
Beyoğlu, especially Istiklal Street, has changed significantly since this pedestrianization.
During the early pedestrianization, many of the stores in the street suffered. The area’s
reputation as degraded meant that only a small number of people came to spend time there.
Istiklal Street, now considered to be the most famous street in Istanbul, became a tourist
area, boasting a huge number of stores, restaurants, clubs and offices. Also a nostalgic tram
started running along the street after the pedestrianization (Paramita et al., 2014). Therefore,

5
these radical urban interferences affected both the urban fabric and the structure of the
Istiklal Street.

3.2. An Islamist Party in action; 1990's urban change regarding the internal dilemmasof
Refah
According to Tanıl Bora (1999, p. 47), Istanbul was tested whether it was ready to become
a global city in local and municipal elections in 1994. When the Islamist party -Refah- won the
elections in Beyoğlu, it was believed that the global city attempts could no longer be revived
according to the political rhetoric of the party towards modernization. Since Beyoğlu was to
be the most visible public space and the symbol of a cosmopolitan coexistence of different
groups under the Ottoman rule, it was the place to revive a so-called Ottoman model.
One of the first acts of the new Major Nusret Bayraktar was ordering the removal of the
tables set on the pavements or the street at Nevizade Street -a small parallel street to Istiklal
Street full of bars, pubs and taverns- due to a populist argument as the street should be more
accessible for the pedestrians. After a while, regarding the objections, the restaurant
managers and the principals reached a common ground (Kabakcı, 2009). With the occasion of
these kinds of regulations, the use of the public space and accordingly the social life was
affected. Even though Refah Party proposed to build a mosque and Islamic Cultural Center in
Taksim Square as part of their vision to highlight the Islamic character of Istanbul, (Bartu,
2001) this proposal was one of the most significant political power battles on the square and
regarding the objections, it was put aside.

3.3. Urban renewal according to the new motto "beautifying Istanbul and glorifying its
Ottoman past"; 2000's
When AKP solely came to power in 2002, the former mayor of the city, Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan, became the prime minister, which provided an administrative sustainability. While
he continued monopolizing the city administration, the government became supportive of the
globalization of the city. Meanwhile, being the European Capital of Culture in 2010 created a
significant opportunity for the publicity of Istanbul. The urban vision targeted in this regard
affected both the physical and cultural transformation of the environment (Keyder, 2010).
Within this period, the trees on the street were cut in 2005, and old and traditional floor
coverings were raveled in Istiklal Street. The removal of the tables on the streets came into
the agenda again in 2011 and this situation decreased the number of people enrolling in this
street causing a challenge for the shopkeepers. Then, a new regulation came into force
dictating that all the signboards on the street must look alike. After a while, the mosque
proposal was again brought to the table. As a consequence, the street which is the culture
and entertainment center of the city, started to lose its old characteristic features and
identity. With the motto of “beautifying Istanbul and glorifying its Ottoman past”, the city has
been characterized by a rapid destruction combined with the accumulation of a global capital
by the present government’s urban renewal attempts. This process has significant effects on
Beyoğlu. In Taksim Square and its neigborhood, the traffic was taken down by tunnels and the
square was pedestrianised. The square, which is still a popular location for tourists, was an
important transportation hub where once underground and other modes of transport had
been interconnected until the pedestrianisation process was completed in 2013 as part of the
urban renewal of the region. Moreover, as part of the urban renewal, the government made
the announcement of the re-construction of the old barracks of the 19th century in Gezi Park
area. Thanks to Gezi protests, the project has been called off.
6
4. Old and new stores of Istiklal Street
The 24/7 active Istiklal Street, which has been a central district of entertainment, culture
and art, is nowadays changing its character and mainly becoming a shopping avenue. The
street is in a new state of mind as a result of the municipality-led urban renewal projects. It is
clear that the political will wants to change the current small businesses with national or
international chain stores in order to make Istiklal Street a consumption center that suits the
global city discourse more than a cultural one. As Kiger (2015) mentioned, lots of cultural
assets of Istiklal Street that have come to be associated with the street were shut down as a
consequence of this mentality. Unfortunately, with urban transformation policies, small scale
trades and local brands started to disappear rapidly in Istiklal Street for the last two decades.
Especially the small shops of the street have been facing serious struggles; major brands are
taking over the street: and, as a result, the rents are increasing significantly and accordingly
the unique facade of the street is transforming. There is a large variety of newly opened
stores aligning on both sides of the street as well as the cafes, patisseries, restaurants, pubs,
night clubs, cinemas, theatres, and art galleries. In fact, for the last decade, the number of
stores of major brands is increasing while the number of spaces of culture or art such as book
stores, exhibition areas and cinemas are decreasing. These chain stores are also redefining
the spatial relations of the street regarding their effects on the facades of the buildings.
Thereby, it is not difficult to claim that the historic originality of the street no longer exists.
On the other hand, as one of the major symbols of globalization in the district, a big
shopping mall of 19000 square meters was built housing 41 stores inside (Anon, 2011b). In
spite of the objections, it was opened in 2011 capturing the place of an old, large commercial
building, with a so-called union of classic and modern architecture in the heart of Istiklal
Street. According to its high income stores, the socio-economical target group of the mall
shows us that the socio economic profile of the intended visitors of the street is also
escalated. Like the other stores, the opening of this shopping center accelerates the removal
of spaces that characterize Istiklal Street or the phase of finding new spaces for themselves in
the by-streets. Therefore, the number of people visiting the street for those spaces is also
affected, and the total number of visitors and their profile changes.
According to a small field trip to Istiklal Street; below we may see the land use of the
street from the first table and the details of the shops/stores aligned on the street from the
second.
Table 1. Land use of Istiklal Street

Land use Number

Embassy / Consulate 5
Mosque / Church 3
School 2
Hotel 1
Mall 1
Under construction 8
Closed 14
Culture / Art center 12
Banks 13
Shops / Stores 151

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 The analyses of Table 1 puts forward that today, the weight of land use in the Istiklal
Street is on shops. The consulate buildings, mosques and churches exist in addition to high
schools, banks, and multi-functional shopping center in the street; however, the number of
spaces which used to be many more in the past like cultural center, art gallery, and cinema is
seen to be decreased to 12. On the other hand, when the 151 shops seen on the table are
classified according to function, the large and small shops that sell textile products are 90 in
total -11 of them are large department stores-, followed by restaurants -6 of which are
representatives of major brands. Moreover, together with the rapid penetration of
developments in communication technologies to our daily lives, many spaces that give service
in this area have recently found a place for themselves on the street. In recent years, there
have been attempts to enhance the tourism potential of Istiklal Street, which has resulted in
an increase of shops that sell several touristic products such as Beyoğlu chocolate and Turkish
delight, whose number did not use to go beyond one or two.

Table 2. Function of the shops on Istiklal Street

Function of the shop Number

Textile Product Shop 90
Cafe / Restaurant 58
Food–Chocolate/Turkish delight store 12
Beauty shop / Perfumery / Optics 11
Telecominication 9
Bookstore 7
Exhange office 4
Others 18

When tables are analyzed, it will not be exaggerating to state that spaces which mostly
hosted cultural occasions not longer than 10-20 years ago disappeared one by one in this
period. Despite the decrease in the number of spaces with a cultural function such as cinema,
theater, and bookstores, it is seen that restaurants and cafes are opened, large stores of
famous textile brands have settled on both sides of the street sometimes with more than one
store.
From the beginning of the 2000's and on, we have witnessed the disappearance of music
shops, bookstores, 2nd hand dress shops, silversmiths, and antique shops inside the famous
arcades of Istiklal Street. Although 3-4 bookstores used to align until recent years, today,
there are unfortunately 7 of them left. Robinson Crusoe 389 Bookstore used to be one of the
oldest bookstores of the street. Having been the only bookstore to be designed by the award-
winning architect who received the Ağa Han award, Robinson Crusoe used to be one of the
most attractive shops of the street in terms of both interior and exterior design.On the other
hand, besides Robinson Crusoe 389 and many others that cannot resist increasing rents,
several historic taverns and buildings experience a change of both identity and function under
the pretence of urban transformation and renovation. Today, only 8 of the buildings on the
street are under construction and 14 of them remain unused. Circle d'Orient Building, which
used to reside the famous Inci Patisserie and Emek Cinema, is also among the ones that is
closed due to construction. Having been on the ground floor of this building for years, the
patisserie is among the closed spaces like the cinema and other stores due to this renovation.

8
 In the proceeding section of the study, Inci Patisserie and Robinson Crusoe 389 Bookstore,
which are the two stores determined as a part of character of the street will be mentioned.
The closing phases of these two unique spaces are held with regard to the neoliberal policies
which were more influential in 2000’s and under the impact of urban transformation studies
that are read as an extension of the wind of globalization.

4.1. Inci Patisserie:

Figure3.Inside Inci Patisserie - after closure - Cercle d'Orient building under construction
(Anon, 2012a) (Basaran, 2012) (Author’s archive, 2015)

Inci Patisserie, once located on the front side of the historic Cercle d'Orient building, was
one of the widely known historical symbols of the street. It was best known for its
profiteroles. It had always been hard to find a place to sit there because it was one of the
smallest stores of the street with a few tables. 68 years after its establishment, the patisserie
was evacuated by police force on December 7, 2012, because of the restoration project on
Cercle d'Orient building (Anon, 2013a). This project also caused the closure of Cinema Emek,
another historical cornerstone of Beyoğlu. On the evacuation day, Mücella Yapıcı, one of the
board members of İstanbul Bureau of Chamber of Architects, indicated that İnci Patisserie
was a cultural value which left its mark in our memories, and these values of us had been
destroyed in search for more economic rent as in the example of Cinema Emek, contrary to
general tendency to protect these kinds of cultural and historical symbols worldwide (Anon,
2012b).
The historical Cercle d'Orient complex was rented by Kamer Construction Company in
1993 for 25 years from Pension Fund, which was then the owner of the building and now a
part of the Social Security Institution (Anon, 2011a). It was planned by the company to use
the building as a hotel, but the project was canceled by İstanbul 2nd Administrative. In 2006,
Beyoğlu and its periphery were declared as renewal area by the cabinet, and so the second
stage of events, those which would determine the future of the complex and Inci Patisserie,
has begun. After that, even though the building was identified as a cultural asset to be
preserved with its surroundings in 1993, Beyoğlu Municipality, the Ministry of Culture and
Social Security Institution designed a project for the renewal of the complex. Kamer
Construction Company's project, named as Grand Pera, got started after the company's pre-
project was confirmed in 2009. All the places in the complex were evacuated immediately;
Inciwas the last one to leave the building and it also carried the legal resistance until the end.
The patisserie was evacuated by police force, even without waiting for the completion of legal
procedures. In February 2013, the company took the warrant and the construction began
(Ozyurt, 2011) (Ince, 2012a).
The architect of the Cercle d'Orient building constructed in 1884 was French-originated
Alexandre Vallaury, and the owner was one of the wealthiest people of the era, Abraham
9
Pasha. The Cercle d'Orient Foundation, which would later be named as Grand Club, was
established here by the British ambassador Sir Alfred Sandison and by some other influential
characters of late Ottoman and early Republic era, including diplomats, businessmen, and
executives. The foundation remained here until 1970s (Anon, n.d.) (Tiyek, 2013) (Bora, 2013).
The story of Inci Patisserie began in 1944. Luka Zigoris had a small workshop in
Galatasaray district of Beyoğlu, and made profiteroles here and sold them to other
patisseries. By time, his profiteroles became distinguished and Zigoris decided to have his
own place. He rented a store which was a shirtmaker before at the Cercle d'Orient building
addressed as Istiklal Street number 124. In addition, Inci Patisserie remained at that very
same address since then(Keskin, 2014). Two months after its closure, Inci Patisserie re-
opened on the ground floor of a building in Mis Street.

4.2. Robinson Crusoe 389 Book Store:

Figure 4.Facade and inside photos of Robinson Crusoe 389
(Yavuz, 2013)(Anon, 2013b)(Karatas, 2013)

Robinson Crusoe 389, was a small bookshop, opened in 1994 in Istiklal Street beyond
Galatasaray Square. The owners that named the store according to its door number 389 did
not change the number above the door when the municipality renumbered the street all over
again and the bookshop’s new address became 195 since this number was coming with the
name Robinson Crusoe (Balpınar, n.d.). In August, 2013, they announced that the store was
on the verge of bankruptcy. The store was one of the last examples of the bookshops left on
Istiklal Street among the stores of the major brands and cafes or restaurants that form the
new backbone of the street.
In 1994, H. Burçin Kimmet, one of the founders of the store, mentioned that Robinson
Crusoe 389 existed as a result of the need for a bookstore they also want to go to. It was
located on an unfavourable corner of the street in those days on purpose, to keep themselves
out of the daily trends and to realize their priorities. Robinson Crusoe 389 was designed not
only to sell books but also to be a place for bibliophiles to meet. This was denoted in the
project text by Han Tümertekin as; "An archive where the books are exhibited in a way
everybody can touch and share. An area not only for those not only who look and hear, but
also who see and listen. A bookstore not just to buy books, but also to ask for, to search for,
to explore, to write, to smell, to meet them." (Uncu, 2013). In its 20-year-long history, this
remained as the main mission of Robinson Crusoe 389. As a result, it had a different
relationship with its customers. In 2013, to get over the economic challenges the bookstore

10
was dealing with, they launched pre-paid cards, but it was not enough to escape from
bankruptcy (Anon, 2011c) (Anon, 2013).The rental of Robinson Crusoe 389 increased three
times in the last seven years and the situation got to the court two times in this period. They
had experienced difficulties in paying the bookstore's former premises, which totaled about
TL 30,000 a month. When they could not afford to pay the rents, the landlord filed for
eviction and won the case. Therefore, the store had to vacate its place (Anon, 2014a) (Anon,
2014b). Now it is settled on the fourth floor of SALT Beyoğlu.
When you visit the new place, you come across a quite different system then the vertical
design. Since its new location is hidden compared to the former one, mostly old customers
and visitors of the gallery can find it. However, it is possible to feel the atmosphere of the
store number 389 with the accompaniment of background music and the welcoming of the
same faces.
Since the rapidly increasing shopping malls at the urban scale host bookstores like stores
of various brands and cinemas, consumers now prefer this type of sterile spaces because they
provide many of their needs at the same time. This affects the number of customers of
bookstores as well as shops and cinemas, causing their closure. As a result of the preference
of the consumer profile to shop at the shopping malls and the transformation of the Beyoğlu
district to a tourism region, it is understood that bookstores can no longer survive in the
region (Anon, 2013).
Different from İnci Patisserie’s situation, there is no issue for the building Robinson exists
to be sold or renewed due to urban transformation. Here, a varying effect of urban
transformation is felt: the increasing attractiveness of the street causes especially the giant
brands to venture paying exaggerated rents so as to be part of Istiklal Street. Consequently,
while this does not create a problem for a firm with economic power, it means closing down
for economically inferior ones.
5. Conclusion:
Istanbul is transforming and it is turning into a global city through a process of urban
transformation according to the globalization dynamics. Istiklal Street, which is the busiest
street in Istanbul as well as a must-see destination for foreigners, is taking its share from this
transformation. Since it has always been a unique venue that demonstrates the vision of the
political power and the ongoing perspective of the country, the street has renovated itself on
numerous earlier occasions.
Assuredly, this transformation is not a spatial one that affects only buildings; the
economy, culture, and lifestyle of the region also transforms. Having been the cultural and
entertainment center of Istanbul for long years, the region is tested with a new lifestyle and
new habits of consumption, becoming a shopping-centered grand avenue that can be seen in
each one of the global cities with its transforming local identity. Chain stores of big famous
brands are taking the places of the small, old shops on the street. The inevitable result of this
course is astronomically increasing rents, which are only affordable by big brands. Small shops
seem to have no chance of surviving under these conditions. As a result, many small and
historical places, cinemas, theatres, and bookstores which had been a significant part of the
history of Istiklal Street are closing down.
This study reveals that the spatial, socio-economical, and cultural transition of Istiklal
Street is an outcome of a wider political project: globalization. Meanwhile, as Sassen argues,
the globalization of economic activity entails a new type of organizational structure. Since the
study questions the present conditions of Istıklal Street in the context of its transition and lays
11
an emphasis on the closure of the small shops, we may argue that the transnational and
hypermobile character of capital has contributed to a sense of powerlessness among local
actors (Sassen, 2005). Besides, this study may help us to gain a broader understanding on
spatial transition through the globalization attempts and global city dynamics on Istiklal Street
in terms of political implications.
Therefore, we should go beyond and read at different levels of this dichotomous new
structure of Istiklal Street to examine the complex and multilayered meanings of urban
renewal and accelerated globalization attempts. As a political phenomenon that Henri
Lefebvre argued, space is always related with ideology or politics (Lefebvre, 1976 cited in
Handl, G. et al., 2012, p.22). In this context, this transition might be read as a stage of a
contemporary political conflict.

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