Morphological Evolution of a Commercial Setting: The Study of Konya Uzum Bazaar

Abstract

Urban morphology aims to formally study the movement in space and to detect the changing character of cities in the context of time, space and physical environment. When the morphology of Konya in the historical process was examined, the first formation developed around the settlement center known as the historically prominent Alâeddin Hill. Over time, the Mevlâna Dargah and its surroundings, which are religiously prominent, appear as the second focal point. The commercial texture that was born and developed between these two focuses in Konya is the traditional Konya Bazaar. In this commercial texture, the “Uzum Bazaar”, located to the west of the second focal point of the city, was formed in harmony with the surrounding texture during its period. After the Uzum Bazaar continued its life for many years, it was demolished, and Mevlâna Bazaar was built in its place, described as a contemporary ‘passage’ in its period. At the beginning of the 21st century, this commercial texture was included in the scope of the transformation project, and the Altın Bazaar period began. The morphological change of this historical and commercial texture, which was called the Uzum Bazaar in the past, according to the periods, was studied by the Space Syntax method and evaluated comparatively. As a result of the analyses and evaluations conducted, it has been determined that the gate counts and intelligibility values have been continuously decreasing in the process following the Uzum Bazaar period, which is characterized as self. According to the integration value, it has been seen that the Uzum Bazaar period, which was formed as part of the traditional Konya Bazaar, has a higher value compared to the Mevlâna Bazaar and Altın Bazaar periods. Although the numerical values of the Altın Bazaar period are close to the Uzum Bazaar period in the connectivity analysis, they are higher than the values of both the Uzum Bazaar period and the Mevlâna Bazaar period. As a result, when the formation of the Uzum Bazaar in the first period is described as ‘essence’, it can be said that steps have been taken towards the “return to essence” with the transformation of the Altın Bazaar in the last period.