Henri Prost is the figure standing in the background of many routes and squares used every day in Istanbul today. Atatürk Boulevard, İnönü Promenade in Taksim, and the expanded Eminönü Square are real-world fragments of the plans prepared for Istanbul by this French architect and urban planner between 1936 and 1951. What makes Prost significant for Istanbul is not individual buildings, but the overall order he established for the city as a whole.The former imperial center, which transferred its capital status to Ankara, was being re-envisioned as a modern city during the early Republican years. Prost's master plans were the most comprehensive manifestation of this thinking. Built upon transport, hygienic conditions, and urban aesthetics, these plans aimed to preserve the skyline of the Historical Peninsula on one hand, while proposing radical interventions into the historical fabric on the other. Today, Henri Prost's legacy in Istanbul is read together with these two sides.
Who is Henri Prost? A Career Extending from Beaux-Arts to Urban Planning
Henri Prost was born on February 25, 1874, in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, and passed away on July 16, 1959. He received his architectural education at the École Spéciale d'Architecture and the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1902, he won the Prix de Rome scholarship. At the Villa Medici in Rome, alongside Tony Garnier, Léon Jaussely, and Ernest Hébrard—who were there during the same period—he is remembered as part of the first generation of French urban planning.His acquaintance with Istanbul dates back to these scholarship years. In 1904, he came to Istanbul to study the ruins of the ancient city. His detailed drawings of Hagia Sophia and his restitutions for the imperial palace of the Constantine era are documents of his first deep engagement with this city.His urban planning career began with the project he won for Antwerp in 1910. In 1913, at the invitation of General Resident Lyautey of French-controlled Morocco, he established the planning office there. He prepared comprehensive plans for Fez, Marrakesh, Meknes, Rabat, and Casablanca. This approach of preserving old medinas while keeping new European quarters separate from them was later criticized within the context of colonial urbanism. After returning to France, he prepared a regional plan for the Var coast that respected landscape values. The Paris regional plan, which he directed starting in 1932, was approved in 1939.
Istanbul in the Early Republic: Conditions Preparing the Prost Plan
The moving of the capital to Ankara almost simultaneously with the declaration of the Republic detached Istanbul from its imperial center identity. In the 1930s, the city was experiencing population loss. The population, which had reached one million before World War I, dropped to approximately 700,000 in 1927. For this reason, the planning agenda of the era was focused on modernizing urban space rather than managing growth. Vast areas left vacant after fires, an erratic road network, and new settlements spreading toward the periphery were the concrete headings of this agenda.
City planning held a distinct place in the modernization program of the young Republic. Following the invited competition opened for Ankara in 1928, an invited competition was also organized for Istanbul in 1933. Donat-Alfred Agache and Henri Prost were invited from France. When Prost declined the invitation due to being occupied with the Paris regional plan, Jacques Henri Lambert was called in his place. German urban planner Hermann Ehlgötz also participated in the competition. The jury chose Ehlgötz's proposal, but this plan was never implemented. The municipality subsequently received a consultancy report from Martin Wagner.
Prost's connection with Turkey, however, predated this competition. He had served as a consultant in the preparation of the Izmir plan following the 1922 fire. In 1934, he was invited again for the planning of the Yalova thermal baths, where Atatürk's summer residence was located. In the summer of 1935, the Governor and Mayor of Istanbul invited Prost to directly execute the planning of the city. In the book prepared by his colleagues after Prost's death, it is recorded that these invitations were deemed appropriate by Atatürk. Henri Prost worked as a consultant to the Istanbul Municipality Urban Planning Department from 1936 to 1951. The reflection of the plans on the ground gained momentum in 1938 when Lütfi Kırdar took office as governor and mayor.
Transport, Hygiene, and Aesthetics: Henri Prost's Urban Planning Approach
Prost titled the speech he delivered at the Institut de France in 1947 "Les Transformations d'Istanbul". He later carried the same title to the compilation of his plan notes regarding Istanbul. This title clearly summarizes his goal in Istanbul. The three core principles of his plans were transport, hygiene, and urban aesthetics.
Istanbul as a "Concentration Plan"
Having prepared an expansion plan for Paris, Prost chose a different path for Istanbul. According to him, the historical core would continue to be the center of the city in the future, just as it had been in the past. Therefore, he structured the master plan as a "concentration plan". He organized the city like a spine across two main arteries connecting the new settlement areas in the north to the historical center. He re-envisioned the Historical Peninsula as a medium-density settlement situated within extensive green areas.
Open Spaces and Modern Urban Life
Open spaces, which Prost referred to as "espaces libres" in his reports, were one of the supporting elements of the plan. Parks, promenades, esplanades, scenic terraces, squares, and sports areas fell into this category. Besides being part of a healthy city, these spaces were designed as the stage for the modern public life targeted by the Republic.
Tension Between Monuments, Silhouette, and Historical Fabric
Prost argued that monuments remaining from the Byzantine and Ottoman periods should be preserved independent of their functional value. In line with the understanding of his era, he cleared the surroundings of monuments and designed new avenues to create sightlines toward them. The height restrictions he imposed on structures in the Historical Peninsula were aimed at preserving the city's silhouette as a whole.
However, the same plan also envisaged fundamentally transforming the historical fabric of the peninsula. Prost found the parcels split piecemeal after fires irregular and proposed a block order aligned with new avenues. For Galata and Beyoğlu, he recommended reducing density and gradually widening streets. Researchers therefore evaluate Prost's stance in Istanbul as two-sided. While the silhouette was preserved, the fabric of the historical center was reshaped according to the requirements of modern traffic.
Henri Prost's Plans and Prominent Urban Projects in Istanbul
Prost's fifteen-year work in Istanbul began with the European Side Master Plan (1937), the Asian Side Master Plan (1939), and planning for both shores of the Bosphorus (1936–1948). These were accompanied by numerous detailed urban projects prepared for squares, avenues, parks, and promenades. His "works" in Istanbul are not individual buildings, but these plans and implementations that form the backbone of the city.
1937 European Side Master Plan
The first major work completed by Prost for Istanbul was the European Side Master Plan, finished in 1937 and approved in June 1939. The plan consists of two separate sheets at a 1/5000 scale. One covers Old Istanbul south of the Golden Horn, and the other covers Galata and Pera to the north. Many elements of the city's present-day main circulation network appear for the first time in the drawings of this plan.
Atatürk Boulevard and the New Road Network of the Historical Peninsula
Prost viewed the opening of Atatürk Boulevard, which cuts through the Historical Peninsula from north to south, as a primary urban operation. The boulevard, along with two main arteries extending to Taksim via the Atatürk and Galata bridges, was to form the spine of the city. The opening of the boulevard was among the applications Prost personally supervised. The 1/500 scale project he prepared for the section between the Aqueduct of Valens (Bozdoğan) and Zeyrek envisaged merging and reorganizing old parcels on both sides of the boulevard.
The same plan proposed two more major roads extending west from Aksaray. In Prost's 1937 report, these roads are mentioned under the names "Vatan" and "Millet". These avenues were opened about twenty years later under the same names during the major urban development operations of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes's era. A coastal road starting from Sarayburnu and following the Marmara coast was also included in the plan. Prost described this road as a promenade route opening onto views of the Marmara and the Bosphorus.
Eminönü Square and the View Opening to Süleymaniye
The expansion of Eminönü Square was one of the projects Prost personally monitored in Istanbul. A 1943 drawing by his assistant Pierre Jaubert envisaged that a new road opened along with the square would create a sightline toward the Süleymaniye Mosque. This project is a concrete reflection in Istanbul of the approach to making monuments visible within the city.
Taksim, İnönü Promenade, and Park No. 2
One of Prost's traces in Istanbul that remains part of daily life today is the green belt extending from Taksim to Maçka and Dolmabahçe. In the Galata-Pera plan, the deep valley between Harbiye and Maçka was set aside as a wide green strip in the middle of new residential areas. Prost envisioned this area as "Taksim's Bois de Boulogne", defining it as the relaxation center and lungs of the new settlement. Later, he added functions such as the stadium in Dolmabahçe, the Sports and Exhibition Hall, and an open-air theater to this area, which was referred to in his reports as "Park No. 2".
The starting point of the park in Taksim became İnönü Promenade, designed in the area left vacant by the demolition of the Taksim Military Barracks in 1940. The promenade area opened in 1943 is known today as Gezi Park. Prost also redesigned the adjacent Taksim Garden with a free layout featuring winding paths that corresponded to the geometric organization of the promenade. The implementation of the promenade area and Park No. 2 along with cultural and sports facilities is among the applications Prost supervised on-site in Istanbul.
Other Major Planned Parks: Archaeological Park and Cultural Park
Prost proposed two more large parks for the Historical Peninsula. The Archaeological Park extended from Sarayburnu to the south of Sultanahmet, encompassing Topkapı Palace and the Hippodrome. Prost designed this area as an open-air museum and promenade area combining archaeology with recreation. The second park, extending from the land walls toward the city center along the Bayrampaşa Stream valley, was included in the plan under the name "Cultural Park". In this area, referred to as Park No. 1 in reports, a botanical garden, a zoo, and natural science exhibitions aimed at public education were envisaged.
Traces of Henri Prost in Istanbul's Architectural History
It is not possible to read Henri Prost's impact on Istanbul through individual buildings. His domain was the relationship between buildings. Which direction avenues flowed, how squares opened up, how green spaces were distributed across the city, and how the Historical Peninsula appeared from the sea are questions belonging to the scale Prost worked at.His traces at this scale are concrete. The opening of Atatürk Boulevard and Refik Saydam Avenue, the expansion of Eminönü Square, and the creation of İnönü Promenade and Park No. 2 in Taksim along with cultural and sports facilities were applications Prost personally supervised on-site during his years in Istanbul. These projects carried the early Republic's vision of public life into Istanbul's spatial fabric. Promenades, scenic terraces, and sports areas were designed as the new stages of urban daily life.
Prost's contribution is also read within a continuity in Istanbul's history of modernization. In the introduction to his reports regarding Old Istanbul, he positioned his plan as a continuation of the major interventions made in the city after 1908 and the modernization efforts ongoing since the nineteenth century. In this respect, the Prost Plan is a comprehensive link during the Republican era of the urban transformation story extending from the Tanzimat to the Republic.
Henri Prost's Legacy from Today's Perspective
Prost worked in harmony with the Istanbul Municipality for fifteen years during the single-party period. With the transition to multi-party politics in 1946 and the Democrat Party coming to power in the 1950 elections, this relationship changed significantly. Citing speculative pressures on urban land and the fact that plan decisions were no longer adhered to, Prost resigned from his post in 1951. Around the same years, the urban planning chair was established at the Istanbul Technical University Faculty of Architecture. Prost's comprehensive yet intuition-based planning practice was sharply criticized by Turkish architects and planners. With rural-to-urban migration accelerating in the 1950s, the planning agenda shifted from modernization to managing rapid growth.
Nevertheless, the plan's influence did not end with Prost's departure. The large-scale urban operations initiated in 1957 during the Adnan Menderes era are considered to have been inspired by Prost's master plan. According to researchers, these operations lacked the meticulousness of Prost's detailed urban design projects and the re-housing measures he persistently advocated for the residents of expropriated areas. Prost's plans continued to serve as a reference source for the major urban interventions of the 1980s as well.
Original drawings, sketches, and photographs from Prost's works in Istanbul are preserved today in the archives of the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris and at the Istanbul Atatürk Library. These documents were brought together for the first time in 2010 in the exhibition and catalog "From the Imperial Capital to the Modern City of the Republic: Henri Prost's Planning of Istanbul (1936–1951)" organized by the Istanbul Research Institute.
Viewed from today, Henri Prost's legacy gains meaning through its twin aspects. The planner who placed the silhouette of the Historical Peninsula at the center of urban aesthetics and the planner who reshaped the historical fabric according to the requirements of modern traffic are the same person. Passing through Atatürk Boulevard, looking toward Süleymaniye from Eminönü, or walking from Gezi Park toward Maçka, the traces left in Istanbul by these two approaches can still be read.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Henri Prost?
Henri Prost (1874–1959) was an architect and urban planner from the first generation of French urbanism. He is known for his city plans in Morocco, the Paris regional plan, and the master plans he prepared for Istanbul between 1936 and 1951.
In which years did Henri Prost work in Istanbul?
Prost worked as a consultant to the Istanbul Municipality Urban Planning Department from 1936 to 1951, directing the planning of the city.
How was Henri Prost invited to Istanbul?
Prost was invited in 1935 by the Governor and Mayor of Istanbul to execute the planning of the city. A book published after Prost's death records that this invitation was approved by Atatürk.
What is the Prost Plan?
The Prost Plan is the general name given to the master plans prepared by Henri Prost for Istanbul. The primary ones are the European Side Master Plan completed in 1937 and approved in 1939, and the 1939 Asian Side Master Plan. The plans are based on principles of transport, hygiene, and urban aesthetics.
What are Henri Prost's projects in Istanbul?
The opening of Atatürk Boulevard and Refik Saydam Avenue, the expansion of Eminönü Square, İnönü Promenade in Taksim, and Park No. 2 extending from Taksim to Maçka are Prost's main implemented projects. Vatan and Millet avenues were also proposed in his plan and were opened during the Menderes era.
Did Henri Prost design Gezi Park?
Yes. Today's Gezi Park is the İnönü Promenade designed by Prost on the area left vacant by the demolition of the Taksim Military Barracks in 1940. The park opened in 1943 and was planned as the starting point of Park No. 2 in Taksim.
Why did Henri Prost leave Istanbul?
Prost resigned from his post in 1951, citing speculative pressures on urban land and the non-compliance with plan decisions.
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