Istanbul Municipality initiates tender to update cultural properties list

ISTANBUL

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has announced that it will conduct a service procurement tender on May 14 to update the official list of cultural properties in Istanbul’s 31 districts.

The number of registered cultural properties, which currently stands at 7,120, is expected to increase to 8,000 with the new works resulting from the tender, daily Habertürk reported on April 16.

The municipality’s Directorate of Cultural Heritage Preservation announced that the tendering procedure has been initiated under the name of “investigation, update, and analysis of inventory data on cultural properties in Istanbul’s 31 districts.”

The relevant works will be conducted in districts excluding Fatih, Eyüp, Beyoğlu, Şişli, Adalar, Kadıköy, Üsküdar and Şile, as in these districts inventory work has already been undertaken.

“Within the context of preservation of cultural heritage in Istanbul, prior to the surveying, restitution, and restoration projects of the cultural properties and works to be undertaken in the implementation of these, the current situation of the properties in question should be determined and the [relevant] evaluations should be based on a detailed research,” stated the technical specification included in the tender documents.

The tender documents state that the works should be undertaken by at least 11 teams, consisting of two people each, under the counseling of a university academic with an experience of five years and specializing in the area of restoration. In each of the teams, an architect specializing in restoration needs to be present. The project seeks the participation of at least nine art historians, a restorer or an archeologist, and seven urban planners.