İstanbul çeşmeleri

In his article "The art of Rent: Globalization, Monopoly, and the Commodification of Culture" David Harvey uses Marxian categories of rent and commodities to take a refreshingly irreverent look at the idea of the' monopoly rents' to be garnered on the collective symbolic capital of cities and how they be used in the effort by capital investors, city planners, and other "Urban Entrepreneurs", to brand its own unique cultural identity. By stripping artistic and cultural artifacts of its revered status as some above the logic of commodification, he is able to show how they exhibit many of the same characteristics of other commodities whose scarcity or singularity inflates their value. Specifically, urban artifacts act as elements in the city's presentation as being unique destinations. Although landmarks might not in of themselves be made into commodities per se, they contribute to the wider campaign to bring economic activity to a city by being part of what makes a place unique.
The transformation of a city into a destination requires walking a tightrope between being able to accommodate the normal capitalistic activities of the the tourist industry while at the same time not becoming too homogenous to betray its unique monopolistic advantage. All one has to do is walk up Alemdar Caddesi in Sultanahmet, with its boutique hotels and hyperreal village woman making gözleme in full folk costume, to see this tension between these two tenancies.
Specific mention is made of Istanbul as being just such a place that offers an irreplaceable experience. Whenever I watch a movie or see some documentary photography from the pre-Özal days I'm always struck at how much the city has been disneyfied, the nostalgic trams, the t-shirts, the convenience. Much of Istanbul's landmarks have joined the monopoly capital popularity contest and have come under the administration of both national and international organizations like UNESCO and the Turkish ministry of Culture and Tourism (it's no doubt telling that culture and tourism are grouped together). For 2010, being one of Europe's cultural capitals, Istanbul has been getting a dramatic makeover and restorations projects are taking place all over the city.
For me personally, in the time I've been living here, the artifact that I've come to associate with Istanbul has been the Ottoman fountain. I think they are sort of magic anonymous relics of a very real past in which they served as the focal point of social life and social status. But apparently I am sort of alone in having that association. To me, they embody that almost farcical juxtaposition of historical majesty and modern nonchalance that makes Istanbul unique in a way perhaps too wonderfully ironic to be captured by Urban Entrepreneurs (at least I hope they're not in on the joke). Take, for example, the fountain wedged between my local bar and grocery store. Officially known as the Hasan Riza Pasha Cheshmesi and built back in 1845, it now serves the duel purposes of cat perch and garbage can. The hero of Schodra, who defended Albania in the Balkan Wars, has the marble tribute to his immortality stuffed with watermelon rinds, cardboard boxes, and even less flattering items on a daily basis. At the beginning of the 20th century Istanbul was home to 1,600 fountains (I honestly don't know where they put them all) but now can only claim 400, many of which are in states even more shamefully decrepit than the one outside my apartment.
To an extent, and in context of Modern Turkish history, this is understandable. From a civic, practical, standpoint they no longer serve a purpose as modern plumbing came to the masses a long time ago. To decry the loss of the religious endowment system of water distribution would make me some kind of infrastructure Luddite. But symbolically they must have fallen easy victim to a political order whose program was summarized by John R. Perry as being "simple: one villain-Islamic Ottoman Past, One Goal-independent westernization". With their calligraphic extravagance, almost indecipherable Arabic and Persian kitabe, and function to enshrine those members of the Ottoman Aristocracy wealthy enough to build fountains, they represent the most extravagant values of the old order.
But we no longer live in the heyday of Kemalism. Quite to the contrary, by all other indications Istanbul has embraced the new. Turkey's new ideology still retains Chatterjee's material and spiritual categories of non-Western nationalism but with a modern-twist: neo-liberal materialism and post-modern spirituality. Ottoman history is repeating itself, as Marx's adage goes, as farce. The Fez is back on the heads of ice-cream peddlers and new Köşk's are being built at a blinding place not on the shores of the Bosphorus but inside gated communities.
In his article on the reemergence of Arabic Calligraphy in Turkish culture, Irvin Cemil Schick says it has been driven back into prominence but has taken on different meanings for different groups. They act as ornaments of conspicuous consumption for the nouveau rich like Sabanci who exhibits his vast collection of calligraphy in his personal museums, conservative groups bask in its semiotic comfort, and graphic artists incorporate it into their own culturally bricolaged work. The spectre of Turkey's Islamic past has come back but now has been dispersed into symbols whose meaning is indexed only by its producer. In addition, as almost no-one involved with calligraphy in Turkey can read it, the meaning of the calligraphy has eroded from having any textual value into mere abstract imagery.
I think Istanbul's fountains have in large part shared in this fate. I would go as far as to say, although this is wholly subjective, that they have fared even worse in Istanbul's detemporalized renaissance. They are not only not understood, they aren't even noticed. Despite what to a foreigner with historical sensibilities like myself may think of them, almost all Istanbulites I know personally or see passing in the street, don't give two shits about Ottoman fountains. Sure, they are being restored and protected by the government, but on the popular level I have seen no appreciation to speak of. It is normal for any person to take for granted the built environment in which they rush through ever single day, but there is still usually a sense of pride for cultural landmarks in famous cities. The minaret pierced skyline is constantly featured on everything from memorabilia to merchandise. The cross-bosphorus ferries are beloved by visitor and resident alike. Even the Simit and tulip shaped tea-glasses are given star treatment. But I have never seen even one measly simulacra of an Ottoman fountain, not one shameless rip-off, only the one very tasteful stencil of a fountain pictured above. Given the two trends I've mentioned, monopoly rent on urban symbolic capital and the return of Islamic calligraphy (and by extension de-fanged Islamic/Ottoman identity), why haven't these fountains been given greater attention in the public conscious of Istanbul's identity? Why haven't they been mobilized in the machinery of touristic spectacle? Why haven't they been patronized by AKP billionaires or cherished by Islamic charities? The strongest sense of stewardship I've seen is hand-made signs asking for you to please not throw garbage in them. Can't they even make it onto a giftshop t-shirt?
If I wanted to make some smug empirically unfalsifiable conclusion as to why this is, I could say something like these fountains are overdetermined symptoms of underlying social relations registered in the built environment or that the fountains are a text whose meaning is carried off in the process of Différance but that would diminish the wholesome strangeness of the whole thing. If forced to give an explanation I would take a more traditional approach and say it was diving retribution for pride. I like to imagine a Pasha, elegant tipped moustached Pasha, gawking proudly at the fountain that would carry his name into eternity and so struck with love, he even contemplates cutting a deal with the devil that this fountain would never be destroyed. And the devil, always able to scheme past the letter of the law, has the fountains stand for centuries, even visibly and prominently, but without invoking any interest or even recognition by those who stand witness to its immortality, unable to even read its invocations.