Tan Oral: Essays of an Architect |
Cities and Us
"It isn't buildings that make cities, it's us. A city is like a living organism. It isn't flawless like a crystal… It's like us, an organism existing with all its flaws. It is therefore a great mistake to regard it as a crystal, as an inanimate object. Cities are organisms like us. Like us, they are continually changing and grow old and ugly. Just as we try to find a way of achieving happiness in spite of all our troubles, cities are also obliged to do the same through the efforts of their citizens. And if town planners take such a large part in the process, let us not, for our part, spare them the shafts of our criticism."
Tan Oral; "Yaza Cize", Iris Mizah Kulturu Yayınları, Istanbul, 1998.