Banging on the Gates: Istanbul Biennial Week Preview

If you haven’t been to Istanbul in a while—or even just in the past two years—it might not be quite the city you remember. The Gezi Park protest movement that began in May, and the subsequent social unrest across Turkey, followed a decade of economic growth and massive urban transformation. The demonstrations prevented the construction of an Ottoman-style shopping mall in place of the park (at least for now) but the city will proceed with its plans to demolish poorer neighborhoods, relocating their communities to peripheral high-rises. Vast infrastructure projects that threaten the city’s ecology—including a third Bosphorus bridge, the world’s largest airport and a new canal—are also in the works.

• Turkey