The Topography of Smell as A Place-Making Subject

Abstract

A person can perceive a place from different angles with different senses. The sense of smell produces permanent information in human memory depending on certain temporal and spatial factors. Place-making can be considered alert physical and mental relationships established with space, containing habits and subjectivities. In the context of place-making practices, experiencing a part of the city via smell-walking creates a smell topography. Even if the smells are the same, the smell topographies of the users produce subjective information for the same space. Questioning the subjective contribution of smell topographies to place-making constitutes the main issue of this study. Within the scope of the study, smell walks were carried out by different participants in Kadıköy Pier and Bazaar. One of the study results is that while smell topographies are the object of the place, it is also the subject of the place-making.