The developments in globalization, industrialization, trade, tourism, transportation, and communication technology, which started with modernism and continue today, have affected societies all over the world, changing their spatial characteristics, function, identity, and culture, and bringing homogeneity (similarity, uniformization, homogenization). Especially the dynamics, technological developments, social, cultural, and political adaptation processes, and economic policies that emerged in the process of modernism and globalization have greatly affected the form of spaces. This interaction, with the loss of originality, locality, identity, and culture, has resulted in spatial homogeneity instead of exhibiting distinctive differences and diversity.
Res. Asst. Tuğçe Öztürk, who has completed her master's thesis on the examination of this concept of sameness, which we encounter in interior spaces in the period we live in, in the context of cafe interiors, is as follows:
“When the interior designs of cafes and new generation coffee shops, which are one of the eating-drinking spaces, are examined in the context of spatial homogeneity, and today's styles and trends that dominate the designs and are widely used are analyzed through examples, it is an important part of the public space that allows individuals to communicate with each other today. The places called third places are defined as places other than homes and workplaces that people use for purposes such as meeting, socializing, and having fun. Today, the interior designs of cafes and third places, including new-generation coffee shops, give clues to the differentiations and changes that occur in the social context. Today, phenomena such as industrialization, technology, and globalization have numerous effects on the social structure in very different contexts. When the spatial reflections of these interactions are examined through the sample spaces selected from the Karaköy District of Istanbul, it has been seen that the interior designs of the cafes and the new-generation coffee shops today are largely similar. Most places act with an understanding that applies whatever usage and trend is most popular at that time and changes the interior design in line with that trend when it goes out of fashion. Such spaces do not have a unique concept and appear as homogenized spaces. The sameness brings with it the results of uniformity and homogenization in spatial design, lack of memory, and loss of identity in spatial design. To avoid the effects of the globalization process that are reflected in the interior spaces, different geographies must exhibit their unique differences and diversity by reflecting their unique localities, identities, and cultures to the interior spaces.”
