| The Republican Era |
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After World War I, resistance movements became active during the Allied occupation of Istanbul, an occupation that lasted for nearly five years. When the resistance movement in Anatolia finally gained success, the last of the foreign soldiers left the city on October 5, 1923. On October 6, the Turkish army entered the city heralding the message of a new government led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the leader of the Turkish independence war, and his colleagues had made a decision in the new National Assembly that Istanbul would turn over its function as capital of the new nation to Ankara. Under republican rule, much new construction activity took place in Istanbul, starting with the building of family houses in the 1930s. In 1950s, more than 7300 buildings were torn down and the road system reorganized. This caused historic changes in the fabric of the city. When the ferry boats became insufficient to serve the increasing flow of traffic across the Bosphorus between the Asian and the European sides of the city in the 1970's, the first suspension bridge was built. Istanbul had assumed an eminent role in the nation's cultural lifeas well as the economy. Immigrants from the rural areas hit the road with the motto "even the soil and the stones in Istanbul are made of gold," leading to much unplanned and devastating construction. On the one hand, there are slums built over night and on the other, huge shopping centers and giant industrial structures. Such is the world metropolis of republican Istanbul, ever changing and developing in all of its aspects. |