This presentation introduces a data-driven methodology for reading urban history through architectural transformation. Rather than using historical narratives merely to explain buildings, it explores how long-term changes in the built environment can themselves serve as evidence for understanding broader political, economic, social, and cultural processes.
The study focuses on Ottoman Istanbul between the mid-fifteenth and the early twentieth century and draws upon a consolidated corpus of 911 georeferenced structures compiled through a combination of archival research, historical maps, published scholarship, and AI-assisted data extraction subjected to human editorial validation. Building upon and expanding the Timeline Travel digital platform, the project integrates statistical analysis, spatio-temporal cartography, and computational skyline visualizations to reconstruct the architectural evolution of the city across nearly five centuries.
Against the limitations of linear and text-centered historiography, the presentation argues for visualization as an analytical and epistemological instrument rather than a merely illustrative device. By tracking the appearance, transformation, and spatial distribution of buildings over time, the project makes visible patterns that are difficult to identify through conventional historical narratives alone. These include the consolidation of the classical Ottoman city, periods of relative stagnation, the diffusion of Baroque and later European influences, shifting patronage structures, and the gradual reorientation of urban development toward the Bosphorus waterfront during the nineteenth century.
The presentation further demonstrates how the same dataset can support multiple interpretive readings, enabling questions about patronage, demography, urban expansion, architectural typologies, and historical ruptures to be explored through a shared visual framework. Particular attention is given to the relationship between historical events and architectural production, as well as to moments where architectural change diverges from established historical narratives, generating new avenues for inquiry.
Beyond its findings on Istanbul, the presentation proposes a transferable methodological model situated at the intersection of architectural history, spatial humanities, and digital heritage studies. The workflow combines structured database construction, AI-assisted knowledge extraction, editorial verification, and multi-modal visualization through maps, skyline reconstructions, graphs, and analytical interfaces. Designed as a scalable research framework, the model can be applied at multiple levels—from a single architectural complex to an entire city—and offers a practical approach for transforming large architectural datasets into tools for historical interpretation, scholarly analysis, and public engagement.
