Wall

The walls aren’t necessarily like the walls of a room. Instead, they are more like barriers

By Panagiotis Ioakeimidis*

Thirty-two years ago, in November, 1989, all of Europe condemned walls. "Never new walls in Europe" was the catchphrase.

A four-story building collapsed April 22 in Istanbul's Kağıthane district after a retaining wall at a construction site tumbled down.

By building walls on its eastern borders, Turkey has implicated it is turning its face to the West. These walls are also NATO walls, according to prominent academic Deniz Ülke Arıboğan, who analyzes the meaning of more than 60 walls between states in the post-Cold War era in her new book ‘Wall’

The Fatih Municipality of Istanbul has controversially converted historic city walls, on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites protected list, for the construction of a new wedding hall, covering them with a portable roof after receiving permission from the Provincial Board of Cultural Property Protection. 

The Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKİ) has undertaken the construction of the remaining 700 kilometers of the wall being built on Turkey's border with war-torn Syria, after the construction of the initial 200-kilometer-long concrete wall on the border was completed jointly by the Defense Ministry and neighboring provinces governor's offices. 

Following the collapse of a wall in Istanbul's historic Gülhane Park, which killed two people and injured five others, ?lber Ortayl?, the former director of Topkap? Palace Museum, said alarm bells were ringing for the entire compound unless a thorough reinforcement project started immediately.  

?Roger Waters The Wall? premiered on Sept. 28 in New York and was screened worldwide the next day for one day only before its release on DVD?The Wall? was a classic reflection on human isolation, but Roger Waters transformed the Pink Floyd album into an elaborate, crowd-packing arena show that was one of the top-grossing in history.

A bird’s-eye view of Istanbul’s city walls reveals the risk of devastation in the event of an earthquake for the 22-kilometer fortification due to neglect and dense residential areas around the structure

These are the top 10 destinations you must see before you die, according to Lonely Planet.

1. Temples of Angkor, Cambodia

2. Great Barrier Reef, Australia