Gazi University Journal of Science Part B: Art Humanities Design and Planning

Abstract

It is revealed in this paper that there is a change from metropolis to metapolis in most of the big cities today. Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, is discussed as the metapolis of the twenty first century. It is because of the fact that the city of Ankara refers to a new contemporaneity, globality, complexity and fragmentality differs it from being a metropolis. Besides, it is beyond the metropolitan scale recently. It is made up of discontinuous, separated and unrelated fragments. This leads a new complexity in the city. It is characterized by the global network of information and communication technology. This is also a new contemporaneity discussed as metapolis (or metacity).
Ankara, as the metacity of this century, reveals the fact that the city and the architecture of the city turn into a commodity. Information and communication technology open the city to share and experience through its digital images. Therefore, metacity is the city of the digital age. Furthermore, the future model of metacity is datacity produced as data by the computer technology. However, the city of Ankara is rather discussed as a metacity with its instantly shared and experienced images on the digital platforms such as instagram. That’s why; it is also called as an instacity. These images promote to produce, consume and reproduce the urban structure as any other commodity. Nevertheless, it is surprising to see the fact that the city of Ankara embraces it as many other big cities in the world. It is its new identity.