THE AFTERMATH OF THE ANKARA STATION MASSACRE: The Agency of Urban Design in the Right to Memory

On 10 October 2015, thousands of people gathered for a political rally at a public square in front of the Ankara train station in Turkey. At 10:04 a.m., two bombs planted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) struck the demonstration area, leaving behind a space ravaged by blood, cries and pain. Following the brutal attack, the space of Ankara Train Station Square changed in profound ways for survivors. Today, nearly a decade later, people continue to gather in the square on the tenth day of every month to commemorate their comrades who were assassinated in this space. In this article I draw on a rich literature on memorials and public spaces, and urban contests over delimiting and defining traumatic spaces and spatializing memory, to examine the processes and experiences of traumatic space as struggles for justice. I zoom in on one aspect of the attack’s aftermath: a design competition meant to set in motion the transformation of an urban space marked by trauma and political contestation. Through this competition, I analyse the politics of confronting atrocity and try to situate this politics within the right to memory—a crucial, if overlooked, discussion within thinking and action around the idea of the right to the city.