Abstract:

Urban image is the mental representation of the environmental components and their attributed meanings. The image which is stored in mind has a crucial role in human-environment relationship, ability to perceive and recognize the environment and being able to act and attain psychological satisfaction. However, this concept had been the subject of urban branding that aims to capture its global share from the capital, investment and touristic resources, and became a concept that is produced increasingly by politicians as well as architects and urban planners. Like many other cities around the world, Ankara also increasingly accentuated urban branding and a new brand image for the city within the past decade. Since 2005, flagship projects with differing brand images were implemented to make the city come forward in the competition among world cities. The main objective of this study is to reveal the physical and semantic dimensions of collective image through Ankara case, and to discuss the place of spaces produced by urban branding strategies within the collective memory. The questionnaire study reveals that the imposed brand image and its transformations on urban space stay far from the accumulated urban image and lacks to hold a meaning within the collective memory of citizens. This difference is observed to be because of the insensitive strategies of urban branding towards city’s history and identity.

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