T-Rex statue replaces 'Transformers' robot of Ankara

Oğuz DEMİR - ANKARA

Hürriyet photos

The Turkish capital’s eccentric mayor has held his promise and removed a controversial Transformers-esque robot statue ‒only to replace it with a large dinosaur figure.


Mayor Melih Gökçek from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had erected a metal-polyester robot figure on the main road intersection of the Atatürk Forest Farm in the Turkish capital on April 2, as part of promotion for a new theme park, AnkaPark, which has been described as his “prestige project."


The mayor had also presented the robot as a symbol of spite against the Ankara Chamber of Architects, which had been opposing the construction of the park. In return, the chamber sued Gökçek over the robot, too.

Gökçek referred to the Transformers series several times when talking about the robot, AnkaPark omitted such a reference due to copyright issues.

On April 16, Gökçek announced in a series of tweets that he would install a dinosaur statue at the same spot instead, because the robot "got on the leftists’ nerves.”



On April 29, municipal workers finally removed the robot, which was slammed as an example of "kitsch" by some of its critics.