A Metropolis in 5 Senses

Organized with the cooperation of Istanbul Planning Agency, Metropolis, and UN-Habitat; A Metropolis in 5 Senses focused on understanding cities within the framework of 5 senses: sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. Ece Ceylan Baba (architect), Merin Sever (author of “Tastes of Istanbul”), Selin Arslan (architect who conducted research on sounds and space), Sinan Logie (architect and artist) and Vedat Ozan (perfumer and photographer) were the speakers in the program moderated by Cengiz Özdemir.

In partnership with Istanbul Planning Agency, Ankara Aks and Kentsel Strateji, MMU also organized Istanbul in 5 Senses: Golden Horn Workshop. The workshop series starting online on October 18, continued face-to-face with 24 young people under the age of 30 for 4 days at Marmara Municipalities Union and IPA Campus in Istanbul. The workshops aimed to explore and experience Istanbul through the senses and discuss this experience through various production methods.

• Sight Workshop: Participants prepared a video collage work from the videos taken during the fieldwork, answering the question “How do we see the Golden Horn?”.
• Hearing Workshop: The participants created various collages by bringing together 133 sounds they recorded in the Golden Horn and defined what these sounds made them feel.
• Smell Workshop: Participants created a smell map based on the question “What would Istanbul be if it were a scent?” and matched the smells of the Golden Horn with various colors.
• Taste Workshop: The team examined the changing dynamics and historical development of taste by focusing on street food, an important part of Istanbul’s food culture. At the end of the workshop, the group created a taste map for the past, present and future of the area and gave the “recipe of the Golden Horn”.
• Touch Workshop: Within the scope of the workshop, a model that reveals the texture of the area was created in the workshop based on the question “If Istanbul were a texture, how would we feel when we touch it?”

Urban Talks: Organized by Marmara Municipalities Union since 2016, Urban Talks is a series of talks that enable information, experience sharing and discussion on issues affecting cities and society such as urban space, transportation, environment, culture, arts, development, governance, social inclusion, population movements.

World Metropolitan Day: A global campaign led by Metropolis and UN-Habitat since 1985 to build more just and prosperous metropolises. Since 55% of the world's population lives in cities, the campaign encourages local, regional and national authorities as well as various stakeholders to organize events during the month called "Urban October" to contribute to the formation of cities with high-quality of life on a local scale and to present visions to improve the competence of local governments in this field.