Lost Heritage: The Entangled Story of the Maltepe Venus and Marine Mucilage in the Sea of Marmara

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Şebnem Balım Çapkan | Lancaster University

What can the loss of a bronze female statue in the 1980s in Istanbul have to do with

the ‘sea snot’ that appeared in the Sea of Marmara in the 2020s?

I moved to Maltepe, one of the coastal neighbourhoods of Istanbul, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was my first time living on the Anatolian side of Istanbul in six years. I quickly sensed its distinct urban texture compared to other coastal neighbourhoods on the European side, which have always been the heart of the city, history, culture and commerce. To me, Maltepe felt like a place belonging to another, unfamiliar, city. Due to the lockdown limiting our social movements, my favourite activity became walking to the beach park. After a while, I started to notice little details about Maltepe on this routine journey, like the intriguing similarity between the logo of the Municipality of Maltepe on street banners and an interesting structure buried in the ground in front of the Süreyya Beach train station on my way to the park. The structure, located in a small recreational area surrounded by high street shops and fast-food restaurants, was barely visible among the trees, and covered with graffiti. This structure seemed so rooted in Maltepe, both physically and metaphorically.

Commonly known as the Virgin’s Monument, the damaged and neglected structure was indeed the symbol of Maltepe, although it was engulfed by the excessive urbanisation. The story of this monument and the lost Venus statue that used to be at its centre epitomise how cultural heritage, loss, and ecological decay are deeply interconnected in Istanbul. I have identified three prominent historical moments that triggered a major change along the Maltepe coastline; the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey, the rise of neoliberal growth in the city, and the migration and the accompanying urban transformation that culminated in this economic growth.

Aerial view of Maltepe beach with parked cars next to a small green park area with trees. The buried domed structure is visible among the trees. Across the street, several shops and restaurants, including McDonald’s, can be seen. — The idle state of the Virgin’s Monument buried in the recreational area of Maltepe beach in 2020s (NTV Haber, Public Domain).

Weathered circular stone pavilion with a domed roof supported by columns, one blackened by fire damage. The interior looks abandoned, cluttered with debris and wooden boards blocking openings. A single blue chair sits inside on the dirt ground. — A detailed photo of the idle Monument (NTV Haber, Public Domain).

Istanbul is, and has always been, a coastal city. The Bosphorus, which separates the European and Asian (Anatolian) sides, connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, serving as a gateway to the Mediterranean Sea. Surrounded by water, the city’s geopolitical position has shaped its cultural development, transforming its coastline into a significant social and cultural centre. Consequently, while the dominant cultures and ideologies inhabiting the city have frequently shifted, the coastline has also been in a constant state of transformation throughout Istanbul’s history. The construction of the artificial Theodosius Harbour in the fourth century, for instance, was one of the earliest coastal landfills in Byzantine Istanbul. Located in the present-day Yenikapı district, the harbour was filled in once again for vegetable gardening in 1760 under the Ottoman rule. Such coastal transformations not only changed the urban fabric but also created new cultural ecologies that triggered various social engagements with the place, including a sense of belonging or nostalgia.

Our Maltepe took a series of dramatic transformations in the 20^th century. It was one of the Ottoman villages with Turkish, Greek, and Armenian population who made their living from fishing and market gardening before the transition to the Republic. Then, it turned into a modern and wealthy resort with many Western-style summer mansions before facing over migration and urbanisation in the 1980s. Following these transformations, the coastline of Maltepe has also changed until recently as we shall see here, shaping our understanding of how coastal areas of Istanbul are naturally intertwined with the formation of the sense of place.

Apparently, Istanbul wasn’t always a city of consumption like it is today. Urban agriculture was a tradition for nearly 1500 years, spanning the Byzantian, Ottoman and early Republican periods. The market gardens, called bostan in Ottoman Turkish, played a central role in local economies, nourishing the capital by providing fresh vegetables and fruits. While the property rights of these bostans usually belonged to the elite, the gardeners were mostly non-Muslim young men, including the seasonal migrants from the Balkans during the planting period. For years, multicultural memory and agricultural knowledge accumulated in these spaces, positioning the bostans as intangible heritage today.

Historical map titled ‘Maltepe ve Adalar’ showing the Maltepe district of Istanbul and nearby Princes’ Islands. Several green-highlighted sections indicate vegetable gardens within Maltepe in 1933. — The 1933 map of Maltepe and Princes’ Islands (*Kızıl Adalar*) in the Sea of Marmara, showing *bostan*s (market gardens) highlighted in green by the author. (Credit: IBB Atatürk Library).

Many of these urban gardens disappeared after the political, sociocultural, and economic shifts driven by the new Republic’s ideals of a modern nation-state after the 1920s and by the post-war industrial growth. Traditional Ottoman neighbourhoods on both sides, including Anatolian coastal areas once considered remote, such as Maltepe, began to be reshaped. In the first 50 years of the Republic, Istanbul’s population not only increased numerically with immense migration from rural Turkey but also transformed culturally. The population in Maltepe gradually became ethnically and religiously homogenized, shifting toward well-off Muslim Turks, particularly with the exchange agreement between Turkey and Greece in addition to the Treaty of Lausanne where the definition and the rights of minorities was rewritten in 1923. Thus, the political and industrial transformation have affected the development of the urban space, where those gardens were replaced with new infrastructures.

To reinforce Maltepe’s position as a model of the modern Turkish settlement envisioned by the Republic, Süreyya İlmen Pasha, a wealthy reformist intellectual, was proposed to build an urban beach in place of his coastal vegetable gardens by the administrators. The beach, named as Süreyya Beach, was completed in 1946 after delays caused by World War II.

Old photograph of a crowded beach promenade, with men in swimsuits posing for the camera, people swimming and sunbathing along the shore, and boats and a monument visible in the sea. — Süreyya Beach in the 1950s with its modern facilities, and its symbol domed offshore structure. (Credit: IBB Atatürk Library).

With government-sponsored promotions and improved transportation, Süreyya Beach became highly popular, although an entrance fee kept it relatively exclusive compared to other beaches in Istanbul. The Virgin’s Monument resembling those found in Europe was built into the sea fifty meters from the beach in 1953. Later, a bronze female statue known as Venus, sculpted by Türkan Tangör, one of the first female sculptors of the Turkish Republic, was placed at its centre. The domed structure became a popular swimming destination to take photos, meet people, and rest during hot summers. The Venus gained immense popularity among young women who believed it could help them find a husband quickly, an adaptation of the Western tradition of the Goddess of fertility and beauty influencing fate.

Old photograph of people in swimsuits gathered around the monument with columns and standing on its steps. Women pose with the bronze female statue Venus situated in the middle of the monument. — Women posing with the Venus statue placed at the centre of the Virgin’s Monument later on (Nilay Örnek, Public Domain).

This transformation erased the memory of multicultural coastal market gardens to create a semi-public urban space of leisure. I also read this as part of the Republic’s social manifestations. The beloved beach, offering ‘luxurious rooms, great jazz and casino’ as seen in the newspaper clipping, evoked a new Western-oriented lifestyle while producing a new image of the Turkish woman and man as modern citizens. The beach increased women’s occupancy of public space and allowed residents to bathe in clean urban waters. Yet it was increasingly fixed and culturally exclusive. This duality proves the restrictions of a borrowed idea of modernity, briefly westernisation, that offers monolithic frameworks for existence in the urban context.

Colorful vintage poster advertising Süreyya Beach in Maltepe, showing a smiling woman in a white swimsuit, a train passing along the coast, and the seaside pavilion with hills and the sea in the background. — The newspapers advertisement by Süreyya İlmen Pasha to promote the facility, showing a woman in swimsuit, the Princes’ Islands in the background, and the commuter train highlighting easy access for the public. (Maltepe Municipality, Public Domain).

The swimming tradition in Maltepe, quickly adopted by Istanbulites, was short-lived. Despite its popularity, the beach was destroyed for the construction of a coastal roadway in the 1980s. Already socially exclusive due to its high entrance fee, Süreyya Beach fell victim to neoliberal urban policies that prioritized the megacity’s economic development and logistics over the well-being of urban dwellers.

Locals who experienced the ‘golden years’ of Maltepe still recall their longing for the beach whenever they see photos or read its history. Beyond losing their place, they also remember with sadness the Virgin’s Monument which was buried when the coast was extended and reclaimed from the sea to accommodate the road. The Venus statue was completely lost in the landfill. The coastal road physically separated Virgin’s Monument from the sea, while simultaneously creating a boundary between the community and the shore, ending daily life practices.

Recently, I encountered an intriguing drawing that shows an architectural design proposed in 1991 which was never implemented on the Maltepe beach. In the proposal, the Virgin’s Monument, stranded in the land of a massive hotel complex and shopping centre, meets the water once again thanks to a pond design. The proposal clearly shows how the neoliberal-capitalist ideologies have such dominant influence on the urban fabric as well as on the collective memory with an illusion of the past to appease the locals’ sense of nostalgia. This also demonstrates how controversial it can be to approach heritage structures in such a dense urban context, especially while the once-famous Maltepe Venus remained forgotten in this increasingly homogenized neighbourhood.

Architectural site plan illustration of Maltepe seaside development, showing a tall, curved hotel building, smaller row structures, landscaped gardens with ponds, parking areas, a nearby railway line with a train, and the coastline with boats on the water. — A shopping centre and hotel complex project proposal designed by prominent Turkish architects Doğan Tekeli and Sami Sisa in 1991, illustrating attempts to reconnect the Monument with the water. (Credit: Salt Research archives).

The most recent transformation on the Maltepe coastline did not improve the condition of the Monument or uncovered the Venus, but it made a huge difference on the map of the city. The park I walked to almost every day during the pandemic was constructed in 2012 and was right in front of the buried Virgin’s Monument and the coastal road. Covering 120 hectares, this grand recreational space is the largest landfill in the city. Ironically, after the green areas in the city were destroyed to accommodate the crowds, a green space needed is being created only by converting the land reclaimed from the sea into a park. Moreover, the excavation waste from the construction works initiated to transform the city into a financial and service centre with required transportation infrastructure is being used in this filling. This coastal park faced considerable criticism for damaging the marine ecology and not being suitable for a city at risk of earthquakes.

Justifying these criticisms, the Sea of Marmara, once incredibly rich in fish diversity and clean enough to host many urban beaches, has been covered with a slimy organism due to the increased anthropogenic interventions. Appearing especially in summer, the marine mucilage that makes water uninhabitable has resulted from severe degradation of the sea, including high levels of contamination and uncontrolled industrial fishing that eliminated the fish consuming the bacteria producing the mucilage.

As the story of the lost Venus demonstrates, the capital-driven, extractivist and exclusionary ideologies fuelling excessive urban growth and homogenisation have caused both a disappearance of cultural heritage embedded in Istanbul’s millennia-old history and deterioration of its ecological identity. By adopting a socio-ecological perspective as a contemporary approach to heritage loss, we should remember the Maltepe Venus before it is lost forever, in order to create novel future imaginations of Istanbul.

Black-and-white collage showing three satellite images from 2011, 2012, and 2021 on the left side. The right-side blends archival beach photographs including the domed structure rising above the rocks, a woman face seen behind the structure, and images from the newer park. A vertical block of text describes the history of a natural rocky platform once used by local youth for diving and mussel gathering, and how it inspired the construction of a safer architectural structure. — A collage as a deep mapping attempt of the Süreyya Beach, illustrating blended layers of the site with cartographic, textual and visual materials. Deep mapping practice here is used for revealing the essence of place which evolves in cultural and ecological processes. Images include satellite views of the gradual construction of the Maltepe coastal park, archival photographs of the historical beach and the sculptor of the Venus statue Türkan Tangör, an excerpt from the memoir book *Çinkolu Ev* (2016), and photographs taken by the author showing the coastal park and the mucilage on the sea surface. The composition visually links memory, geography, and urban shoreline development.