Dragomanen 26/2024: Pedestrian Modernities

Blind Spot was the name given to an interdisciplinary cultural heritage project that brought together academics, architects, historians, artists urban planners, researchers and cultural initiatives from Sweden and Türkiye with the idea of exploring buildings and places typical of Türkiye's early republican (and preceding) modernism which are often overlooked or neglected. The project began in 2023 with a number of online meetings hosted by the cultural initiatives Postane in Istanbul, Bayetav in Izmir nad Kültürhane in Mersin, all initiatives that are engaged in questions of urbanity and the preservation of cultural heritage in Türkiye. From these initial meeting, a series of seminars were developed in the form of walking tours in the three partner cities. These discursive walks were supplemented with presentations, lectures, visits to exhibitions and side events and were held together by a continuous flow of enthusiastic discussions. Some of the reflections that emerged from the walks are presented here in this issue of Dragomanen.