Observers' Perceptions of Aesthetic Quality of High-Rise Buildings in the Urban Landscape: the Case of Levent/Istanbul

Abstract

Growing globalization along with rapidly advancing demographic, technological, and economic motions affects the image of many cities in today's world. High-rise growing, in the world has been clearly seen since the last two decades. In recent years, the city landscape has been impacted by modern high-rise buildings and has become a major matter from the point of the landscape conservation of a city like Istanbul with a historical peninsula silhouette. In this article, which argues the aesthetics of the manmade environment, assorted elements have been assessed by the users based on the formal aesthetic measure in the 4th Levent area, where high-rise buildings are intense. In this context, this article aims to specify the elements that can enhance user preferences, quality of urban landscapes, and the approach of different social groups towards the place. Visual survey methodology, which is applied here to determine the user's perception of the place, is the main method of the study based on visual landscape evaluation techniques. 95 individuals participating in the survey were asked to assess formal aesthetic factors consisting of building facade effect, building aesthetics, sovereignty, diversity, prestige, background, trust and superiority for 15 chosen high-rise commercial buildings. One-way ANOVA, correlation and regression tests were applied on the data which collected through questionnaire. With the regression models to be created, formal aesthetic variables which were meaningfully predictable in the perceptions of the urban area were determined. The findings and results are expected to supply substantial resources to the relevant city stakeholders in future urban landscape studies.