Skyframe (Goekkafes) in Istanbul: An Ontological Assessment

摘要

This paper is inspired by an expert report submitted to the Council of State concerning the Skyframe (Gokkafes) building in Istanbul. The conflict as to the coming into existence of Skyframe was brought to the court by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality against the Ministry of Tourism, where the municipality was objecting to certain procedural aspects of a building that was almost complete in 1999. The action gave the expert group a chance to investigate the history of Skyframe, which has coincided with urban space production by 'property capital' in the last two decades, and the weaknesses of the design and planning professions. In the report, though it is known that the courts usually look for more objective evidence, and that it is considered to be a metaphysical argument in philosophical discourses, ontology was used as a critical tool in the analysis of the Skyframe building.