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Once the capital of the Byzantines and the Ottomans, and now the commercial and cultural hub of Turkey, Istanbul is a city that struggles with the legacy of its past and the demands of the present. The Altered Viewscapes of Istanbul, an art project carried out by university undergraduates, was developed to cultivate awareness of the urban cultural heritage of Istanbul. The project enabled students to evaluate their relationships to selected cultural heritage sites of the city and asked them to consider how this heritage could foster creative forms of civic participation. The students were asked to reflect on the aesthetic experience of viewing the historic peninsula of Istanbul and particularly, Eminönü, one of the city's oldest districts. Students drew connections between the creative process and active spectatorship of the viewscape while considering how social, political and economic factors shape public space and the urban environment.

The Ottoman fortress of Seddülbahir on the European shores of the Dardanelles and Kumkale, its sister fortress on the opposite side of the Straits, were both built in 1658 by Hadice Turhan Sultan, the queen mother or valide sultan of Sultan Mehmed IV. The Seddülbahir restoration project illustrates that the type of information that can be extracted from the Ottoman building and repair records is invaluable for guiding decisions concerning potential excavation sites. Along with the non-invasive techniques that are increasingly a part of pre-excavation archaeological planning, a thorough investigation of the extant physical remains, and the visual records provided in engravings and other representational sources, an examination of the building and repair records in the Ottoman archives should be standard methodological practice for any Ottoman era archaeological or restoration project.

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