Traces of Intangible Cultural Heritage: Historical Process of Public Spaces in Duzce/ TURKEY

Throughout history, it has been determined that the public spaces are affected by the developments and changes in society. In the 21st century, technological developments that based on incremental value have created essentially public spaces without soul or identity, in which human looks like an object (e.g.shopping mall). These spaces provide for needs that are dictated. However, there is an unconcerned tendency to intangible cultural heritage that accumulated throughout history of mankind. The interactions of communities with the environment, nature and history has constituted our cultural heritage, and rituals which have created traditional public spaces that provided for their own needs. These spaces, acquire missions like providing connection between cultures, strengthening the social ties and ensuring the continuity of cultural heritage. However public spaces and history of mankind are under threat in the cities that rapidly turn to concrete masses. Nowadays, the process that resulted in the loss of public space traditions in metropolition cities has not been fully experienced in the developing cities but it doesn’t mean that this danger will not be encountered. In this study, traditional public spaces history, importance in cultural transfer, change with socio-economic reasons and resistance to wrong urbanization are discussed on the example of Düzce which is one of the small cities in Turkey. In this context, when examples of traditional public spaces in Düzce are examined by the oral history, source scanning, observation and analysis, continuity of traditions preserve spaces and continuity of spaces preserve the traditions has been reached as a result. The aim of this study is to discuss the issue of urbanization without an identity via public spaces and determine the subjects that are needed to evolve considering the facts of today.