Özet:

City, one of the main components of the geographical space, should be seen not only as a spatial concept, but also as a complex structure with its demographic and cultural attributes. Urban spaces evolve in time, as their social and economic attributes change along with the variation in structures of their production and consumption. The main target of urban conservation projects is sustaining urban culture and city identity by conserving some quarters of the city. These conserved quarters carry on the messages of past urban models that were more successful on human-nature interaction. Kemeralti conservation project is a work which was produced for this purpose and which aims to pass Izmir’s historical city center with its original quality to next generations by revitalizing it. Kemeralti Project is an original conservation plan in terms of its huge scale, delicately detailed analyses, application model and development model with public participation.  This paper aims to define the vision, objectives and targets of the project and to elucidate the application tools of the project. Another purpose of the paper is to make plan’s vision clear to simplify application process and to suggest a course of action to other projects either in Izmir’s Historic City Center or in similar areas. Key words: Urban conservation, historical city center, revitalization project, Kemeralti