Dead-ends

Maps are associational and diagrammatical representations of any possible subject-matter. The ones which are founded upon geographical areas -rather than psychological maps such as mind maps-, are mostly formed up of lines as the most simplistic forms for determining paths. Despite maps can differ in their form of the display depending on the choice of expression, lines indicating roads which, in definition, are ways leading from one place to another, comprised of only two parallel lines. Thus, in itself, a path/a road/ a street can be seen as passages transiting from one place to another yet, this definition is contradicting itself in the form of dead-end streets. In essence, a dead-end street has only one different element from roads, two parallel lines forming a passage, and that is a line which is perpendicular to these two parallel lines closing the transmission point. At this notion, a dead-end street is not only forming a safe area throughout the street with this closure but also expanding the definition of a street by denoting it. The street is still leading from point A to B yet, point B is confined to new possible paths.

Between Eminönü and Balat, Fatih districts, dead-ends streets are very common. Dating back to many of its inhabitants, the city’s scape has changed a lot with respect to people’s needs. Dead-ends are mostly used for forming a safe zone between buildings without the crowd of cars and thus traffic. It is also used to create an atmosphere of privacy among buildings used by big families. This is why, even today, wandering around these streets, all of a sudden leading to a dead-end, flaneurs can find themselves in the middle of someone else’s habitat, surrounded by personal belongings burst out of houses to the streets. This is why, it can be said that dead-ends are either hosting the people inhabiting the place or the wanderers who take any roads whether the road corresponds to the premise of leading from one place to another.

After all for them, “the idea is to be in a constant state of departure while always arriving.”