![]() AKP revitalized the İstanbul’s symbolic power by attributing it as a “de facto” capital of Turkey. As a capital of Ottoman Empire and the biggest metropolitan city of Turkey, İstanbul has been the center of hegemonic wars on urban space each political group who hold the power has tried to redesign İstanbul throughout the Republican history. Istanbul, with its symbolic, geographic and economic significance, would be a compatible field to explain the transformation of Turkey’s national and state identity in the urban space. While the hegemony of Kemalist secularism has been strongly weakened the visibility of Islamists in the society and public life has increased in JDP era and a new form of state identity is created with the support of mass media, architectural designs, Islamic arts as well as discursive practices. Beginning from 1980s, rising with the identity politics in 1990s Islamic politics has consolidated its power under the rule of JDP since 2002. seculars, has existed throughout the Republican history. However, counter hegemonic attacks towards Kemalist policies which lays behind the two main political cleavages, modernists vs. (Re)naming and (re)construction by using specific symbols and modern architecture was operated by Kemalists not only to consolidate the new state identity but also to transform the society. The new Republic of 1923 used space-politics to create a Westernized, modern and secular nation-state by detaching the urban space from the traces of Ottoman past. Urban space is not a static but dynamic “lieux de memoire” (the sites of memory) which reproduces the past, constructs the “new” and reflects state-society relations. (Re)construction of urban space have been used as means of transforming the ideologies into a concrete form and consolidating the symbolic power of the state in the everyday life. This article explores the transformation of Turkey’s national and state identity under Justice and Development Party (JDP) rule in a spatial perspective by focusing on the counter hegemonic war on İstanbul’s panorama.
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