Research Information System
in: Handbook of Research on Aestheticization of Violence, Horror, and Power, M Nur Erdem,Nihal Kocabay-Sener,Tuğba Demir, Editor, IGI Global yayınevi, Pennsylvania, pp.347-368, 2021
The concepts of power, aesthetics, and fear beyond the boundaries of art reveals tangible and intangible
existence through urban space, and public space stands as the centre of attention due to its transforming
meaning and spatiality reflecting the global-local thresholds of economic, political, and social compositions
of different time periods. The research aims to unfold the layers of ‘power’ that are capable
of manifesting through built environment using state apparatuses, that is, urban planning, land-use
changes, architecture, securitization, and pacification of symbolic and socially constructed meanings
and connotations of particular urban spaces, each of which upholds its own aesthetic formation that is
unstable, sensational, and perceptual. Turkey is chosen for its rich and yet complex social and political
history as the case concentrating on Kızılay Square in Ankara due to its potential of reflecting a rich
historical passage starting with a modernisation implication of a new capital to tyranny of forms of
institutional, political, and representational power at display.