to start, here in the nw is maslak, sort of a secondary business district going up west of ataturk oto sanyi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslak
maslak competes with levent, the main business district to the west.
it may at some point have the diamond of istanbul project complex,
which would surpass levent’s sapphire tower nearby as the tallest in europe.
however, it seems that project is currently on hold: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_of_Istanbul
yep a handful of gorgeous towers like shappire and some others, but otherwise most of these new towers look like something you might have seen go up in the states on the outer loop in the 70s-80s. still, even this far out the density remains impressive to american eyes so i definately applaud that.
also, the cool looking kanyon mall aside, the turks remain crazy for mostly soulless new mega-malls and outlets out here on the perhiphery of the city. cevahir is europes largest mall and its no surprise it is located nearby. ya have to give'em a pass on this, after all istanbullis invented the mall (grand bazaar)!
I think Sapphire turned out to be an unattractive building. It doesn't look like the gem that the render promised it to be. Kanyon, and the Levent Loft lowrises, and a few buildings in Maslak are nice but aside from that the architecture isn't that ground breaking. There are also a lot of twin towers in Istanbul which can be okay but when there are so many of them it gets really old.
I'm surprised you walked around Maslak since the sidewalk / street pattern there is a mess. I'm surprised that the municipality still hasn't done a complete overhaul of roads and sidewalks in the area if it wants to be taken seriously as a business hub. In comparison, it's easy to walk around in Levent or any of the business clusters on the Asian side.
There are also three major projects under-construction in your pictures. Zorlu Tower, Faco Tower, and Özdilek Plaza. When they're completed in a few years it will be interesting to see how the Levent skyline will benefit from their presence.
wow you are picky - sapphire is a really nice looking building. the inside is underwhelming, but outside it looks slick.
maslak streets are definately a disaster. just bafflingly incompetent. yet it continues to go up. i saw an ad for the spine tower and that ought to look good. the biggest development site i walked by, which you can see in the construction site pic above, was this one: http://www2.chapmantaylor.com/projec.../42-maslak/en/
^ yup its a twin lol! but it has potential to look good. who would want to live there given the tangled mess of the streets and lack of...anything for humans?...is of course another story.
***
Hybrid Mode