A Semantic Approach to the City: Three Urban Symbols in Ankara B. S. Ezgi Saritas I.

Introduction The intention of this short essay is to provide a brief analysis of urban semiotics in Ankara. In this framework, three urban symbols in Ankara, Ataturk monument in Ulus, Hittite Sun Disk monument in Sihhiye and Atakule shopping centre in Cankaya, will be studied. These three symbols are not the symbols of Ankara, and many others could have been chosen such as Anitkabir, Turkish National Assembly Building or Kocatepe Mosque. Moreover a symbol of a city is different for different groups, also the meaning it has is not the same for everyone. However the official symbol of a city is representative of the power relations that are at stake in determining that symbol. Before the semiological reading of Ankara, a brief analysis of semiotics will be provided. Through this, the concept of symbol will be elaborated in the light of Charles S. Peirces semeiotic analysis. After that, this general framework will be applied to the urban space in the light of Gottdieners socio-semiotics and Roland Barthes analysis of urban semiology . A reading of Ankara through the above mentioned three symbols revolves around the north-south axis of the city which is an axis important in both historical development and current mapping of Ankara. In order to understand the significance of three urban symbols, it is important to mention the symbolic importance of the city itself. With an understanding of the symbolic significance of Ankara, the three symbols will be studied in their own historical contexts. In all three cases, their initial symbolic effects changed through the time as well as the way they are read by the inhabitants of the city today. In the essay a semantic approach to the city will be tried to developed in Barthes terms.

In this attempt at a semantic approach the city we should try to understand the play of signs, to understand that any city is a structure, but that we must never try and we must never want to fill in this structure. For the city is a poem, as has often been said and as Hugo said better than anyone else, but it is not a classical poem, a poem tidily centred on a subject. It is poem which unfolds the signifier and it is this unfolding that ultimately the semiology of the city should try to grasp and make sing. (Barthes, 1997: 172)

II. Theoretical Framework II.I. Sign and the Symbol Semiotics defined by Gottdiener is a system of knowledge that takes the sign as its basic unit. (Gottdiener, 1995:4) Gottdiener divides the current semiotic arguments into two traditions: the post-Saussurean approach and the one that follows Peirce. (ibid.) Saussure and Peirce were developing two separate theories of sign in the same period without knowing about each other. In this study I will not directly mention about Saussurean tradition, but rather concentrate on Peirces semeiotic1 Peirce defines the sign as standing for something to the idea which it produces, or modifies. Or it is a vehicle conveying into the mind something from without. (Peirce, 1931 quoted from Gottdiener, 1995: 9-10) The object is the thing that the symbol stands for while interpretant is the idea it creates, its reflection on the mind. (ibid.) A sign has no meaning when it is not received, but perception is not enough; the sign has to be interpreted too. (Hoopes, 1991:8) Also a thought has no meaning when it is not a sign. For Peirce thinking is not a pure mental process without any relation to material world, and through the signs- which are in direct relation with the material world- we are able to think. However the relation between the mental processes and the material world is not a

I use word semeiotic when I refer to Peirce as Max Fisch informs us that Peirce frequently used that word. He never used the word semiotics and he rarely used semiotic. (Fisch, 1986:322)

mechanical one. This is one of the reasons why Gottdiener prefers to use Peirce in sociosemiotics over Saussurean semiotics which could be criticised of being too mechanistic. Another reason is, unlike Saussure, the relation between meaning and sign is not necessarily arbitrary according to Peirce. (Hoopes, 1991:12) This way of analysis permits us to take the historical forces into account while examining the relationship between the sign and the meaning. (ibid.) Different from Saussure, in Peirces theory, there is no single sign but rather there are three: the icon, the index and the symbol. In Peirces words this classification becomes more clear:
This explains why there should be three classes of signs; for there is a triple connection of the sign, things signified, cognition produced in the mind. There may be a mere relation between the sign and the thing signified; in that case the sign is an icon. Or there may be a direct physical connection; in that case, the sign is an index. Or there may be a relation which consists in the fact that the mind associates the sign with its object; in that case the sign is a name.2 (Peirce, 1991:182)

These three kind of signs are not mutually exclusive and they should be taken as aspects of semeiosis. (Fisch, 1986: 332-333) A sign is classified under either one of the three kinds when one aspect is more prominent than the others. Within this classification, symbol is the one that is most appropriate for this paper. In symbol the meaning is created in the mind of the interpretant. However what is significant here is that this meaning is not due some transcendental given truth but due to historical and cultural factors. Symbols meaning are subject to transformation over the time as well as negotiation between different actors in a given time.

Here symbol is referred as name.

II.II. Social Semiotics As mentioned earlier, in referring to the concept of sign and symbol, Peirces framework will be used. Another approach that will be used in the theoretical framework is social semiotics as referred by Mark Gottdiener. Gottdiener is very much influenced by Peirces semeiotic and one of the basic premises of his approach is taken from him. This relates to the examining of the sign in its material context of the daily life. The object that lies behind the meaning is not neglected. (Gottdiener, 1995:26) Both this objective world and the interpretation of the sign are derived from codified ideologies. (ibid., 26) Following an Althusserian line, Gottdiener says that these encoded ideologies are not mere discourses but they are realized in the daily life materially. (ibid.,28) We can read them in several aspects of the life including the institutions such as the school, the church, the media or the built environment. However this does not mean that the codified ideologies fix one reading of a sign, rather several ideologies intersect in one cultural expression which creates polysemy. (ibid.) In such a framework, it becomes clear that the built environment is the materialization of ideologies in the most tactical sense of the world. It is the ideology that is encountered everyday, and even though one might try to escape other cultural expressions of these encoded ideologies simply by avoiding them meaning switching the TV off, or not sending your children to school- it is almost impossible to avoid the meaning inscribed in the built environment. It is peculiar that even though the built environment has such an effect on our lives, it has been rarely subject to such reading. One important semiological analysis of the city that needs to be mentioned here belongs to Roland Barthes. II.III. Urban Semiology The third source of the theoretical framework is that of Barthes urban semiological analysis. Barthes refers to earlier examples that could be taken as efforts at urban semiology.

One of the prominent names is Kevin Lynch. According to Barthes, Lynchs concept of legibility and his concepts of landmark, edge, node, path and district can be taken as concepts belonging to a semiological analysis. However Lynchs analysis remains more Gestalt than structural. (Barthes, 1997:167) When look closer at Lynchs concepts, we see the concept of landmark gains a specific importance within the framework of this essay. Lynch defines landmark as a physical element which is an external point of reference to the observer. An important characteristic of landmark is its singularity. (Lynch, 1960:78) Spatial prominence, location of the landmark, the activity associated with it, or the meanings that are attributed to it (such as the historical associations) are the factors that strengthen a landmark. With these characteristics, landmark seems to be a notion that is useful in an analysis such as mine. However, although Lynch talks about the meaning attached to a landmark, he is not focusing on the power relations taking place in that process. Landmark remains more a neutral and descriptive term. In this essay the notion of symbol is preferred instead of landmark as the attempt is to question the relations that lay behind the process of signification. Although Lynchs analysis helps to read the city more easily, the power relations that lie behind the signification processes and the meaning that is negotiated is not reflected in his concepts. When compared to Lynchs neutral reading of the city, Barthes analysis provides a better framework as he regards the city as a discourse.
The city is a discourse and this discourse is truly a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak our city, simply by living in it, by wandering through it, by looking at it. (Barthes, 1997: 168)

However it is difficult to speak about the language of the city without metaphor. In order to start speaking about the language of the city, Barthes claims that we shall start using the technique of symbols . (Barthes, 1997: 168) 5

Before telling us more about this technique, first Barthes reminds us that symbolism is no longer perceived as a fixed correspondence between signifiers and signifieds.(Barthes, 1997: 168-169) The word symbol has always meant the existence of a signified, however Barthes usage of the word refers to its syntagmatic or paradigmatic nature, meaning referring to the organization of meaning rather than to the semantic dimension. (Barthes, 1997: 169) Within such a framework, if we look at the relation between the signifier and the signified we see that the signifiers are transient. One signified might have several different signifiers that change over the time. A concept that deserves some attention in this analysis is the concept of empty signifier. Empty signifier is determined not by its content but by its correlative position. (Barthes, 1997: 169) An example that could be given is a city centre that is not a concentration of any particular activity but is important in terms of the organization of other parts of the city. (Barthes, 1997: 169) The discourse of the city has no fixed reading. As the urban dwellers are the readers of its discourse, by changing the fragments places they can have new readings and reach at new meanings.
When we move about a city, we all are in a situation of the reader of the 1000,000 million poems of Queneau, where one can find a different poem by changing a single line; unawares, we are somewhat like this avant-garde reader when we are in city. (Barthes, 1997: 170)

However the reader is not totally free while reading the city; s/he is reading within the encoded ideologies. This reading should not be taken as a structural one where the agent is totally determined by the structure, nor s/he should be regarded as a free interpreter of meaning. The meaning becomes a negotiated one. The attempt will be trying to look at this negotiated meaning while analysing the three urban symbols in Ankara. Before doing that Ankaras significance as a symbol itself will be analysed.

III. Ankara as a Symbol As Vale says the capital has a symbolic force because the government is seated there.
Programmatically the modern capital is expected to be both practical and symbolic focus of national administration and especially it is expected to serve as the focus of efforts to promote a sense of national identity. In these ways it differs from other cities. (Vale, 1992:15, quoted from Aksehir, 2003: 21)

Although the sole reason for the symbolic force of a capital is not that, in the context of Ankara such an explanation seems appropriate. Ankara has become the capital of the newly founded Republic of Turkey in 1923. Although Ankara had already become the centre of the struggle in the War of Independence, it was not easy for it to be accepted as the capital instead of Istanbul. First of all it lacked the infrastructure as a capital but more importantly the tradition of Istanbul as a capital was very strong. However the new elite of the republic decided that Istanbul could not continue to be the capital both because it was open to foreign invasion in terms of its geographical location, and it belonged to the Ottoman past that was tried to be negated by the new republic. Defining a new capital instead of Istanbul was one of the most ambitious projects of the new republic in trying to construct its sovereignty and the new Turkish identity. The War of Independence was the past that the new republic would refer to and Ankara was a good choice in that respect because of the important role it played in the War of Independence. (Aydin et al., 2005: 379) It was to represent the young, independent republic that would start a fast modernization process which would be reflected on the capital more than any other city in Turkey. (Kilinc, 2002:21) Ankara has always been the symbol of the War of Independence and the Kemalist republican ideals, however as the symbolic power of them are weakened through the time, Ankara came to represent different things.

Ankara is not a city with a lively social, cultural life, or economy. It is generally referred as the dull city of bureaucracy. Although it does not have a lively and attractive image, it has been a city where there is a lot of state activities taking place as the state bureaucracy is located here. This is also reflected in the built environment and the city has become a site where the sovereign power is expressed. In the city one can easily read the official discourses that are encoded in the built environment and their shifts over the time. The ways these discourses were represented in urban symbols and what kind of conflicts rose in this process will be analysed and while doing this, the main north-south axis will be followed. The three urban symbols in question are arrayed in the same order historically as they do geographically on this axis: Ataturk monument in Ulus (1927), Hittite Sun Disk monument in Sihhiye (1978) and Atakule in Cankaya (1989). IV. Three Urban Symbols in Ankara IV.I. Ataturk Monument in Ulus IV.I.I. Ulus and the Monument During Late 1920s and 1930s Ulus is originally designed as the centre of Ankara. The square was the centre of the city since late 19th century and it was the place where the War of Independence was conducted. (Yalim, 2002: 158) During the War of Independence and the early years of the republic, Ulus was the focus of Ankara and it represented the meanings assigned to the city. It was the first public space that the new republic produced and it was the place where the new republican identity was represented and practiced through architecture, practices of everyday life and ceremonies. (Yalim, 2002: 166) The square was originally named Tashan after a building that was built in 1890s. With the foundation of the republic, it was named Hakimiyet-i Milliye Meydani (Sovereignty of the Nation Square) and in 1930s this Ottoman name was changed into the Turkish; Ulus Meydani (Nation Square).

In the 1930s the square was defined with the public office buildings surrounding it. This caused it to remain external to the daily lives of the inhabitants who were not able to experience the built environment but could only be spectators. (Yalim, 2002: 183, 187) By the 1930s, the square became a centre of trade and a place where cultural and social life was most lively. The celebrations and ceremonies taking place in the square were very important in terms of their symbolic significance. (Yalim, 2002: 192-193) These were important occasions in which the inhabitants of the city could interact with the built environment, become more than just spectators and take an active part in the construction of meaning. The ceremonies and daily practices that were tried to be imposed and architectural elements were to reflect one set of value system and common objectives: modern,

progressive Turkish nationality. The Ataturk monument in the middle of the square is significant as it was where all this was most concentrated. (Yalim, 2002:197) The monument as an urban symbol is one which the meaning is attached to it as such in Colombijns classification of urban symbols. (Colombijn, 1993: 61) While representing the national solidarity and the independence, the monument was making its references to the immediate past namely the War of Independence. (Yalim, 2002:197) The monument was designed around the figure of Ataturk as he was the person that would represent those ideas best. (Yalim, 2002:197) Around him are three figures that represent the people who made it possible the war to be won. On the left hand-side there is the figure of a soldier standing straight, ready to defend his country; on the right hand side there is another soldier watching for the enemy. On the back of the figure of Ataturk there is a peasant woman carrying a bomb to the battlefield. Through these three figures the Turkish people are reflected as brave, dignified and altruistic. (Yalim, 2002: 201, 202) There are also relief works on the two sides depicting famous scenes from the War of Independence.

Fig.1. Ataturk monument in Ulus, The monument is surrounded by the shops around the square.

IV.I.II Ulus and the Monument Today From 1940s onwards both the square and the monument underwent a rapid transformation and gradually lost its significance. In 1935 Tashan building was sold to a

community bank that was funded by the state led textile industry; Sumerbank. With the end of etatist economy policies in 1950s, Sumerbank turned into a provider of clothing at low prices. This was one of the factors that caused the square to become the trade centre of working class. (Aydin et al., 2005: 544) The centre gradually shifted to Yenisehir (New Town, or Kizilay as it is referred today) which is on the south of Ulus. The hotels, cinemas, restaurants and finally public office buildings started to move towards the south along the main north-south axis. (Aydin et al., 2005: 544, Yalim, 2002: 208) In 1950 the single party rule of CHP (Republican Peoples Party) came to an end. New government party Democrat Party was negating the homogenous nation state and defending liberalism and populism. Till the 1950s, Ulus had been the place where the dominant ideology was encoded in its symbols, especially the monument. (Yalim, 2002:213) However from

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1950s onwards, not only the dominant ideology was challenged, but also the square did and it was neglected by the authorities. Today the monument is not legible anymore because of the busy traffic and the shops surrounding the square. What it signifies today is not the heroism or independence of the nation, but rather the ghost of these ideas. When reading the city through the north-south axis it becomes an empty signifier in Barthes terms. The city is still organized around it, however its meaning is hollowed. In the context of current urban regeneration projects, the square is under the threat of destruction. This makes it a centre of the conflict between the pro-Islamic local government and Kemalist circles that defend the square. It is ironic that the latter has neglected the monument in particular and Ulus area in general for a long time as they have been represented as the symbols of insecurity and lower class life-style for the modern, elite inhabitants of the city that live in the South. Like all urban symbols, the monument has different meanings for the inhabitants of the city. For some who use the square in their daily lives it serves as a landmark, while for others who rarely go to Ulus it is an object of nostalgia that they should defend against the pro-Islamic, neo-liberal regeneration. For those who live in distant squatter houses (gecekondu) it is one more Ataturk statue they see once or twice a year when they go to Ulus for shopping, and for others who live in distant upper-middle class suburbs it is also another Ataturk statue that they would never see. As Barthes says it is a silly effort to try to hunt all of the signifieds as they are changing through the time as well as for different groups in the city. IV.II. Hittite Sun Disk Monument in Sihhiye IV.II.I. Sihhiye and the Monument in 1970s Starting from 1950s the city has started to have two centres. In 1970s the there was a upper class circle around southern centre Kizilay (or Yenisehir; New Town) and a lower class

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circle around the northern centre Ulus. (Aydin et al., 2005: 546) Between 1950s and 1970s migration of the rural population to the urban centres was the most important characteristic of urban space in Turkey. (Sengul, 2003: 159) This population was concentrated in the northern part of city and were living in the flourishing squatters houses; gecekondu. 3 Local government elections of 1973 was very important in terms of the way the squatter population effected the results and CHP won the elections in many cities. (Sengul, 2003:162) CHP, once the authoritarian single party of the republic, started to adopt a more social democratic discourse and CHP municipalities were representing the poors of squatters that needed social policies. There was a conflict between this left-wing local governments and the right wing central government. (Sengul, 2003: 162) This is a period that the city was governed democratically by the active participation of the city dwellers. The second symbol Hittite Disk monument in Sihhiye and the square around it is where this period is symbolised. It is also important as being the place where the radical political movements were organized. Vedat Dalokay is an important historical figure of that period as the municipal leader of Ankara between 1973-1977. One of his projects was the establishment of the monument in Sihhiye as a monument that would symbolize Ankara. Like the Ataturk monument, Hittite Sun monument was deliberately built to represent the city. Although generally known to be belonging to the Hittites, the symbol of Hittite Sun belongs to Hatti civilization that used to live around the area where Ankara is situated today during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Adoption of the symbol by the local government in the 1970s was important in terms of accentuating the Anatolian character of the city. Ankara, which was criticized of being a city without any history, was given a historical reference which dated back from the Ottoman history that the Republic negated. Although Dalokays intention to make the Hittite Sun Ankaras symbol met resistance from the central

The term gecekondu means built over one night if it is translated literally from Turkish.

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government, the monuments construction was finished in 1978. The

nationalists

in

the

central government opposed the monument on the grounds that it made a reference to a preTurkish history, while for the Islamists this pre-Muslim symbol was not appropriate for the capital.

Fig.2. Hittite Sun Disk monument in Sihhiye

IV.II.II. Sihhiye and The Sun Disk Monument Today Along the north-south axis Sihhiye is a mid-point between the northern region of the poor and the richer southern region. Today very few of the inhabitants of the city are aware of the history that it is there to represent, and even less know about the story of its construction. For the local and central authorities it does not have any significance either and it is largely neglected. As a result of the conflicts around the monument, the right wing local governments of Ankara deliberately diverted the traffic around the square, making the monument and the square an island that is surrounded by several urban motorways. Gradually the monument has become far from being legible. The traffic also creates a distance between the pedestrians and the monument. The monument is hardly a part of the every-day lives of the urbanites. While the two other symbols are part of the everyday lives of people at least as a meeting place, one has to pay a great effort to go near the monument.

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Over the years, it has become a transition point without an identity of its own and is void of any official meaning imposing itself on the readers of the city. As a point of transition it is full of potential meanings that could be attached to it by the inhabitants of the city. One of the most important characteristics of Sihhiye is that it is full of public buildings, especially hospitals. The name Sihhiye comes from this characteristic of the area.4 Being a place where public hospitals are concentrated, Sihhiye gains another important characteristic. It has been a place -and to a certain extent still is despite the increasing number of private hospitals- where every faction in the city has to go for health services. This makes the square a public space though a peculiar one where there is no real place for the people to get socialized. Earlier Abdi Ipekci Park near the square was serving such a function, but as a result of the busy traffic around it, it is not a lively social place anymore. This is true for Sihhiye in general; there is almost no space for the pedestrians. However in one specific occasion the distance between the monument and people diminishes and these are the protests. In Sihhiye, both the Lausanne square where the monument is situated and Abdi Ipekci park are the places where most of the legal protests take place and the monument is a symbol of these protests.

Fig.3. The monument is in the middle of the busy traffic, and it is in a difficult position to be reached by the pedestrians.

Sihhiye comes from the word sihhat that means health.

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The sun disk also became the official emblem of the city during Dalokays municipality and it was a very controversial issue of that time. When the official emblem was changed by Melih Gokcek in 1990s a pro-Islamic mayor who is still in rule- it was again very controversial. As Ekici says this time it was a conflict between the secularists and the fundamentalists. (Ekici, 2004:88) In the new emblem there is a white silhouette of a mosque combined with the tower of shopping mall Atakule on a navy blue background.
The mosque is not only reminiscent of old Ankara, the Islamic-Ottoman past, but also of the recently completed Kocatepe mosque, the largest one built in Ankara in the republican period. The crescent and star represent the Turkish flag. Similar to the post-office towers of some western countries, the tower is in new Ankara, up on Cankaya, and visible from most of the city. (Erdentug and Burcak, 1998: 598)

For the first time the reference is made to the previously negated Islamic-Ottoman past by a symbol of the city. One other reference was made in this emblem was the modern Ankara represented by the first shopping mall in Ankara; Atakule.

Fig. 5. The First Emblem of Ankara, Hittite Sun Disk and the Current Emblem

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IV.III. Atakule as an Urban Symbol Within the three symbols analyzed, Atakule is the only one that is also functional. Its symbolic characteristic stems both from its being a mall and from the tower that could be seen from many places of the city. Like the other symbols studied, Atakule was also deliberately designed to be a symbol. The tower was designed to offer a panoramic view of Ankara, however its function as a landmark that could be seen from most of the city was a more important intention. The period the mall was built is important in terms of understanding what Atakule symbolizes. Starting from 1980s neo-liberal economic policies were started to be adopted in Turkey. One reflection of the new consumerist and individualist life-style that emerged as a result of these policies was the construction of the first shopping mall in Ankara in 1989. (Aksehir, 2003: 33)
The content of the mall experience, which is the form of content or codified ideology, articulates the image-driven culture of the larger society and its ideologies of consumption that are propagated by the media. (Gottdiener, 1995:84)

Fig.6. Atakule in Cankaya

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Atakule is situated at the south end of the north-south axis on which the two other symbols are situated. On this end, the upper class population is more concentrated. In the shift of power from north to the south in Ankaras transformation through the time, Cankaya, where Atakule was situated, was the last point reached. Not only the well-off population living in that area, but also the Head of Republics office gives Cankaya a prestigious status. (Aksehir, 2003: 50) This status was much stronger in the early 1990s and shopping from Atakule was perceived as a status symbol. One other thing Atakule offered is a quasi-public space with a safe, isolated environment which is the general characteristic of malls. The mall is denying the outside through an introversion. (Gottdiener, 1995: 90) Atakules mirror like outer walls represents such a separation from the outer world. With such a structure the aim was to integrate the inside while closing to outside. (Aksehir, 2003: 85) While the mall is isolating the street level outside from the inside, the outside is offered as a spectacle by the panoramic view of the tower. Still the street is kept at a safe distance from the new individualist dweller of the city. In the early years of the mall, the dweller of the city was given a sense of privilege to see the city from such high point both because Atakule was a status symbol and also it used to cost too much to go up the tower. With Atakule the new modern Turkey was tried to be represented, however this modernity was a little different from what the Ataturk monument in Ulus represented. It was a Turkey that tried to get integrated to the world market through adopting neo-liberal policies, and be a part of the European community. The modern Turkish citizen was defined by being entrepreneurial and eager to adopt the new life-style prompted by consumerism. In 1995 a new emblem of the city was adopted and Atakule was one of the defining figures in that emblem. The consumerist and individualist identity represented by Atakule was

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combined with the religious identity. Actually this strange combination is representative of the image of Turkey in the process of European Union integration. Today Atakule has lost its popularity as a shopping mall and also as a symbol. In the consumerist society it represents, everything grows out of fashion so quickly and so it did. With the expansion of city and the emergence of new suburbs, the focus shifted, although not completely, from the main north-south axis. New malls that offer a variety of brands, leisure activities and larger spaces emerged. In order to restore its popularity, a supermarket, a cinema, new cafes and restaurants are opened in Atakule, but still it is not as popular as its competitors. However it still serves as a landmark, although few of the inhabitants of Ankara would accept it as the symbol of the city. V. Conclusion As Barthes says the inhabitant of the city reads the discourse of the city through living in it, wandering around it. We are reading the language of the city everyday without realizing This reading is not free of the encoded ideologies. In this short paper I tried to reveal the official discourses that manifested themselves in the space in the capital of Turkey since the foundation of the Republic. Only one of the symbols represented the incorporation of the urbanites in the construction of the meaning. The others expected the urbanites to act according to what the symbol was representing. None of the symbols possesses a real symbolic power today. They are all out-dated symbols; this is true for Atakule too which is the current official emblem of the city. One other aspect is that none of these symbols are actively parts of the daily lives of the inhabitants of Ankara. Even Atakule, which is functional as a shopping centre, is not a centre where economic, social or cultural activities are concentrated. In the choice of these three symbols, the fact that today all three are neglected by the authorities that encoded an ideology in them plays an important role. This creates a potential

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for the urbanites to fill the void left. The Hittite monument in Sihhiye is a good example of how this void could be filled with new meanings by the urbanites. For the Ataturk monument in Ulus and Atakule in Cankaya, there has not been any attempt in doing so, but the negation of the official discourse by the dwellers of the city is an important indicator of such a potential. This is why I left Kizilay, the practical centre of Ankara where the economic, social, cultural and political life is concentrated most on the north-south axis, aside. A further attempt at the semiological analysis of the city through the symbols should incorporate the way the inhabitants of the city read it. In this short essay an outline for that kind of a deeper analysis is tried to be drawn.

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Bibliography Aksehir, T. S., 2003. A Study On Architectural Elements of Space Identity : Atakule. Thesis (Master). Bilkent University. Aydin, S., Emiroglu K., Turkoglu O., Ozsoy D. E., 2005. Kucuk Asyanin Bin Yuzu: Ankara. Dost: Ankara. Barthes, R., 1997. Semiology and the urban In: N. Leach ed. Rethinking Architecture: A Reader In Cultural Theory. London: Routledge Colombijn, F., 1993. The power of symbols in the urban arena: the case of Padang (West Sumatra) In:P. J. M. Nas ed. Urban Symbolism Leiden: E. J. Brill, 59-77. Ekici, B., 2004. Perceptions of Different Socio-Economic Status Groups Living in Ankara, Thesis (Master). Middle East Technical University. Erdentug, S. A. and Burcak, B., 1998. Political tuning in Ankara, a capital, as reflected in its urban symbols and images International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 22 (4), 589-601. Fisch, M. H., 1986. Peirce, Semeiotic, and Pragmatism: Essays by Max H. Fisch. K. L. Ketner and C. J. W. Kloesel ed., Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gottdiener, M., 1995. Postmodern Semiotics: Material Culture and the Forms of Postmodern Life. Oxford, Cambridge: Blackwell. Hoopes J., 1991. Introduction In: J. Hoopes, ed. Peirce On Signs: Writings On Semiotic by Charles Sanders Peirce. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press , 1-13. Kilinc, K., 2002. Oncu Saglik Projelerinin Mekani Olarak Sihhiye In: G. A. Sargin, ed. Baskent Uzerine Mekan Politik Tezler: Ankaranin Kamusal Yuzleri, Istanbul: Iletisim, 119156. Lynch, K., 1960. The Image of The City. Massachusetts: M.I.T Press. Peirce, C. S., 1991. Peirce On Signs : Writings On Semiotic by Charles Sanders Peirce. J. Hoopes ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Sengul, T. 2003. On the trajectory of urbanisation in Turkey: An attempt at periodisation International Development Planning Review, 25 (2), 153-168. Yalim, I., 2002. Ulus Devletin Kamusal Alanda Mesruiyet Araci: Toplumsal Bellegin Ulus Meydani Uzerine Kurgulanma Cabasi In: G. A. Sargin, ed. Baskent Uzerine Mekan Politik Tezler: Ankaranin Kamusal Yuzleri, Istanbul: Iletisim, 157-214.

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