Ress. Asst. Dr. Başak Lâle successfully defends her doctoral dissertation and earns her Ph.D.

Ress. Asst. Dr. Başak Lâle from Istanbul Gelişim University (IGU), Faculty of Fine Arts (FFA), Department of Interior Architecture, has successfully defended her doctoral dissertation titled “Reading the Changing Meaning of Dead-End Streets from Past to Present Through Housing: Istanbul Fatih Dead-Ends” before the jury of the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design at Hacettepe University, Institute of Fine Arts.

The multi-layered research conducted by Res. Asst. Dr. Başak Lâle focuses on dead-end streets, which formed a critical threshold between housing and public space in traditional Islamic and Ottoman urban design. The study utilizes striking data to analyze the spatial and social transformation of these structures—which were initially considered a spiritual extension of the interior space and semi-private areas protecting the household's privacy—starting from the mid-19th century.

The study examines the historical turning points in the Fatih region through six fundamental periods: the Tanzimat modernization, the rational planning discipline of the Republican era, post-1950 mass internal migration waves, the 1985 UNESCO conservation process, the 1999 Marmara Earthquake, and post-2015 deepening demographic shifts. Supported by archival documents, morphological analyses, and field observations, the research demonstrates how dead-end streets—increasingly perceived over time as "technical defects to be eliminated"—have turned into through-streets, commercialized, squatted, or completely disappeared, drifting away from their formerly protective identity. The research vividly illustrates how these areas, which once nurtured neighborhood relations, have evolved into contemporary spaces that are “as close as touching each other, yet so far apart.”

Providing an invaluable contribution to the literature in the context of urban memory, housing culture, and the preservation of traditional neighborhood morphology, we congratulate Ress. Asst. Dr. Başak Lâle on this outstanding achievement and wish her continued success in her academic career.