 Gunda's that was a very powerful Account of what cities feel like to be in and how we love them and protect them But as I was listening to I wondered how you feel about a city which now has almost 16 million people That 15 and a half million who've swelled this place are they still Istanbul is they stumbled another Istanbul Has the sheer scale and size of the city changed the things that you love I really can't answer that question because we never asked that question to the people who live in Istanbul I don't want to be make a counter argument, but unfortunately we don't listen to them. I suppose my point is that Thus the historical city you describe what we see from these amazing windows is not the day-to-day experience of so much of the city And I wonder if one can still How do these two cities connect? It's my feeling that really all who come to Istanbul indeed to have a sense of history That they were realization of the past of its time You know that it's even reflected in the lullabies and the songs and the references of the people to the past That you can have a waiter in a Turkish restaurant Singing songs going back as far as five centuries yet also still humming to a song of the Beatles So are we creating new foundation myths about the city all the time? I think the language of the city is changing constantly And I think that we are aware of a change in the language What keeps us from being aware of the language is those who insist on one language per city I've always understood a city as being about choices and the more successful the city the more Choice it offers the more and I enables people to make their own city out of the ingredients that are there So cat and I've been designed for airports as well That's easier than designing cities, but at airports we're in one mass shopping mall at the moment Sitting next to each other ordered to sit in such a way that we can't communicate and We're not even meant to communicate with each other and here is the world at the airport people going to different places coming from different places not being able to exchange one word and Thank you architects for making these airports so that we can't communicate Why not have airports before we start with the cities designed in such such a way with the museum with entertainment with music With round sitting facilities where we can talk to each other Then let us be introduced to the cities or let us leave the cities in that fashion It's just that our way of thinking has been so Oriented to specific chain market oriented formulas that we really address different needs perhaps, but not the person Richard does this chime with your vision of a city which should be Vega and less defined Which I think what I understood you'd be saying There it is No, I think it's I think what I'm Talking about is a little more in line with what Cicada was talking about Which is That often when we talk about urban culture We talk about the place as being somehow something that defines as a specific set of feelings almost like a kind of Behavior experiment And what I think is happening to local places now is That People are making out of their sense of place much more of a kind of narrative. I Don't agree with either of you that are I it's very easy to demonize architects And it's it's a wonderful game You know, it's very satisfied because mostly they're horrible But it's one of those things you know that we need and I think the trick For me in urban design now is how to design places that people can inhabit rather than simply succumb to a dictate The space tells you to do X or Y Another way to think about this is that a lot of modern building is very brittle. It lasts for a while than it breaks and That's a that's a technical and aesthetic problem within design That is that we aren't creating in the root sense of sustainable architecture kinds of architecture that can live over long periods of time There's not much interest in modern capitalism and creating that kind of architecture and Sustainable architecture in that fundamental way and An architecture like that doesn't allow adaptation and inhabitation So I think we're a succedo and I are on the same wave length is what kinds of Physical environments, how can we make them so that people adapt them to Life narratives, which is I was trying to Explain are themselves no longer fixed in a kind of linear time and that's a real challenge for the designer To respond to a kind of life narrative, which is no longer linear So I'm afraid I'm a little on the opposite side from both of you that that is a technical problem And it's an aesthetic problem of design It's it's some way in which buildings allow people to do this work of habitation and we're very bad at it and as we've you know been making these These tours around the world what what do you see again and again is a very over determined architecture That's not allowing Habitation to go on it lasts for a while usually for the length of the mortgage and Then it's finished Can I ask a question to Magda please at this point actually he was talking about the official and unofficial stories and the narratives This is again one of the most important subject matters under discussion in Turkey and it has been debated In the recent years that is the narrative history the official history narrated through the ages and it's now There's this argument that as we go away from that Official history narrated and imposed on the generations. We're becoming more and more democratic regarding this Architectural approach to the cities and also the aesthetics Together with the democratization of the cities Would you mind that this official and the would you think that this official and the clash of the official and the unofficial? stories do create in themselves a kind of Aesthetics of democracy which goes more for a less Determinant as Professor Senate was saying more flexible in the city space because I have also the basic Believe that I have developed in the recent years that we were before talking about the problem of the implosion of the cities Now we're more talking about the problem of the explosion that were witnessed in the cities Regarding all the suburban developments and other things and is stumbled don't ever forget that in the last 15 years received 15 7.5 million of immigrants which are now located in the Peripheral you know suburbia as city dwellers still having contacts with the urban spaces and Coming here together with their own narratives of history in a very of course Authentic way, so how would you elaborate on these? here As I said in my talk that is this unofficial story and the official story both of course are important When I was writing my book on Bombay I found the official history of Bombay Remarkably well cataloged there were libraries like a Asiatic library and Even commercial libraries where Corporations had their histories which I looked at the official gazetteers of the British colonialists What I could not find was chronicles of The life of people in the native town Because they wrote well not many of them were Literate to begin with but when they wrote it was to in the form of these little postcards on which every available inch of space was Scrawled over So even when I could understand the language It was really dense writing because they needed to back in as much information as they could And some of these postcards were in my own family that People who were living in Bombay sent back to the village in Gujarat. So this I Think this just persists today Even now when we look at the large cities Of the globe It's very easy to get the official story because it is marketed by armies of public relations people and It's you can you know get it easily enough on the internet. It's packaged in an accessible format So the resistance to the official story is much quieter you either go to Activists and in some of their motives are suspect But you actually go into walking around the slums for example just outside of this hall is this wonderful Old town where I went walking around a couple of days ago, and it really reminded me of a small town in India with all these little Shops that were either very specialized or sold everything in one small space and little residences and shops and I felt that if I were to be studying Istanbul, that's where I would begin from the bottom up you One thing I wanted to mention was Richard I Didn't intend to demonize architects. Some of my best friends are architects Even though I might not let my sister marry one, but The I think the the problem with the kind of architecture that we're seeing The architecture that has replaced the slums in all over the world is that It seems all to have been designed by one bad architect The public housing I saw in Rio looks exactly like the public housing in Mumbai It looks exactly like the public housing in Istanbul. So who is this uber architect who's designing all these buildings? I know Architects who are trying to work with people and You know work with the slum dwellers In improving what they already have built. So I think what we need is Our architectural academies to turn out Teams of architects and direct them to first of all go learn the local languages And then to listen Before you plan before you draw blueprints. Just go and listen if I might Interrupt as an ex architect or an escaped architect. I think architects are themselves primary storytellers and One of the stories they've told too often is their inipotence Which allows people to take that inipotence seriously and then assume that this inipotence is to blame for something Which is a more complex product of the world I was going to ask you really about some of the things that you were saying about the responsibility of journalism To question narratives and stories and I when you came back from the podium I whispered the words nostalgia in in your ear because of course what you're describing is a form which is dying Who is going to ask these questions in this future another thought that comes to you also is the sense that Those postcards written by the official writers Surely now being replaced by are being replaced by Facebook Which will never go away Can I just one second? One sentence you mentioned the letter writers in Turkey. There were people sitting next to the government offices writing the petitions for the People actually and they are already being filed as a matter of Unofficial stories, I just wanted to make you rather than the letter writers They were of course writing some letters, but rather they are known and They were doing the job of a petition writer for the government offices That's right one of my ancestors was a scribe One of my sister talking about the letters written to the Presidents and the prime ministers by the people asking for jobs in everything filed of course for years and years Yes, they were known as three months in India and one of my ancestors was a scribe for the king of well One of the nababs of this area of Gujarat where The nabab spoke and my ancestor took dictation so those records we have access to it's the other Letters and well now I realized that a lot of these migrants conduct their communications Not just through Facebook, but through Skype so they go into these Internet places in Jackson Heights and but unfortunately, I don't know if they are Kept that they're recorded. I know that There's a change in universities So that these smaller stories I mean attention is being paid to them, but your point about the press about This kind of journalism of this kind of investigative journalism dying right now. I think it's well taken The great American journalist AJ Liebling once said America has freedom of the press for those who own one So again, this is a place where You know in India, it's quite blatant Most of the newspapers are owned by various industrial houses and the editors and the reporters are expected to kill negative stories about The industrial house that that owns the paper. It's a maybe a little less subtle in the West but still It's it's one of the jobs of journalists not just to investigate these matters I mean, there's not a lot of investigation to be done in an urban plan But the problem also is that many of the journalists who cover issues of architecture and planning Aren't well educated in these issues. They don't come to conferences like this. So Which the the resources of the newspapers in the magazines coming under tremendous strain they Stick in the first general assignment reported that they can finance you go cover the redevelopment of Coney Island Which is one topic that is crucial to the future of New York City, but If you were to look for An article that just explained the issues in an interesting way You'd be hard-pressed to find one So we need journalists who can not only investigate malfeasance But tell a story about cities and about planning because there is a really riveting story to be told I think I responded to hastily to your immediate question your first question about How much people felt themselves to be a part of this number? I was too excited by my delivery there What I really want to say and it follows up and I think a bit what you said that there's a With the descent disenfranchisement in the city. There's a sort of a feeling of immediate belonging and constant change in the sense that Well, very typical example as you get on the very crowded the stumble buses. They're not as crowded now as they used to be And because it's so crowded of course you start pushing people toward the back and you say hey those in the back We can't breathe move back So it's us here immediate belonging and It's them back there saying don't push us but three stops later. You're in the back and Now you have immediate sense of belonging to the back saying those up front don't push us And I think with the changing daily issues That we find ourselves Sort of stuck in corners stuck with issues and just trying to fend our own turf for that immediate moment or immediate day Rather than partaking In the cities affairs through various associations or having a voice in the city. Thank you I think we're running out of time So I just like to thank Richard Suketu and Gunders for giving us a very illuminating view of the city as a story Which will go on telling. Thank you And to Richard Sanaday as well. Thank you very much for your interest