Kadir Topbaş (8 January 1945 – 13 February 2021) was a Turkish

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

businessperson A businessperson, businessman, or businesswoman is an individual who has founded, owns, or holds shares in (including as an angel investor) a private-sector company. A businessperson undertakes activities (commercial or industrial) for the ...

and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

who served as

Mayor of Istanbul This is a list of mayors of Istanbul, Turkey. This covers the Ottoman Empire to the modern day; the name of the city in English is Constantinople during the Ottoman period and in the Republican era until 1930. Ottoman Empire During 1453–18 ...

from 2004 to 2017.

Biography

He was born on 8 January 1945 in Altıparmak village of

Yusufeli Yusufeli ( hy, Բերդագրակ, Berdagrak; ka, ახალთი, Akhalti) is a town and district of Artvin Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It is located on the bank of Çoruh River 104 km south-west of the city of Artvin, on ...

district in

Artvin Province Artvin Province ( tr, ; ka, , ''Artvinis p’rovincia''; Laz: ართვინიშ დობადონა ''Artviniş dobadona'') is a province in Turkey, on the Black Sea coast in the northeastern corner of the country, on the border w ...

. Kadir Topbaş moved to Istanbul in 1946 with his family. He earned a PhD in

architectural history The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The beginnings of all these traditions is thought to be humans satisfying the very basic need of shelt ...

from Istanbul University following his education of

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

Marmara University Marmara University ( Turkish: ''Marmara Üniversitesi'') is a public university in Istanbul, Turkey. The university is named after the Sea of Marmara and was founded as a university in 1982. However, it was created in 1883 under the name of ''H ...

in 1972 and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

Mimar Sinan University The Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University ( tr, Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi, or MSGSÜ) is a Turkish public university dedicated to higher education in the fine arts. It is located in the Fındıklı neighbourhood of Beyoğlu, Istanbu ...

in 1974. After working as

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as a ...

Edirne Edirne (, ), formerly known as Adrianople or Hadrianopolis (Greek: Άδριανούπολις), is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders, ...

, teacher and freelance architect in İstanbul, he served between 1994 and 1998 as advisor to then-mayor of Istanbul

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...

for the restoration and decoration of palaces and other historical buildings in Istanbul. Topbaş was also the owner of the Turkish cuisine restaurant chain, Saray Muhallebicisi.

Political career

Topbaş entered politics as member of the religious oriented Milli Selamet Partisi (MSP). Later on, Topbaş ran twice for the deputy of Artvin province in the

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

, first in 1977 from the MSP and then in 1987 from Refah Partisi (RP) without success. In 1999, he was elected mayor of Beyoğlu district from the Fazilet Partisi (FP). In the 2004 regional elections, Kadir Topbaş ran for the post of mayor of İstanbul from the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) and won on 28 March 2004. He became co-president of

United Cities and Local Governments United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) is an umbrella international organisation for cities, local and regional governments, and municipal associations throughout the world that is concerned with representing and defending the interests of ...

in November 2007 and was longlisted for the 2008

World Mayor World Mayor is a biennial award organized by the City Mayors Foundation since 2004. It intends to raise the profile of mayors worldwide, as well as honour those who have served their communities well and who have contributed to the well-being of c ...

award. Kadir Topbaş was re-elected as the mayor of İstanbul metropolitan area in 2009 Turkish general local elections, passing the runner-up

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (born Kemal Karabulut, 17 December 1948) is a Turkish economist, retired civil servant and social democratic politician. He is leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) and has been Leader of the Main Opposition in ...

, current leader of

Republican People's Party The Republican People's Party ( tr, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, , acronymized as CHP ) is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey which currently stands as the main opposition party. It is also the oldest political party ...

. Topbaş was appointed President of the Union of Municipalities of Turkey in 2009. During the

Gezi Park protests A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Turkey began on 28 May 2013, initially to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul's Taksim Gezi Park. The protests were sparked by outrage at the violent eviction of a sit-in at the park prote ...

in mid-2013, he stressed that the redevelopment plans for

Taksim Gezi Park Taksim Gezi Park is an urban park next to Taksim Square, in Istanbul's Beyoğlu district (historically known as Pera.) It is one of the last green spaces in Beyoğlu and one of the smallest parks of Istanbul. In May 2013, plans to replace the ...

were formulated straight from

and not the municipal authorities. Topbaş subsequently made a commitment for better dialogue with the general public before urban development would occur, claiming that "we won’t even change a bus stop without asking local people first". He appeared to walk back on that commitment several days later, saying that it should not be taken literally and that the AKP had the final say. Topbaş's son-in-law was arrested in the aftermath of the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, for supposed ties to

Gülen movement The Gülen movement ( tr, Gülen hareketi), referred to by its participants as Hizmet ("service") or Cemaat ("community") and since 2016 by the Government of Turkey as FETÖ ("Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation" or, more commonly, "Fethullah T ...

. Because of this, Topbaş himself reportedly lost favour in the AKP, but he refused to quit the party. He stated his plan to carve out a separate burial space for soldiers who participated in the coup and name it "the graveyard for traitors". Near the end of Topbaş's mayoral tenure in 2017, he vetoed five proposed municipal zoning plan changes. However, the vetoes were overridden by his fellow AKP members. He resigned as the mayor of Istanbul metropolitan area on 22 September 2017, without revealing a particular political reason.

Mevlüt Uysal Mevlüt Uysal (born 1966, Alanya) is a Turkish politician and lawyer who was the mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality from September 2017 to April 2019. After completing the primary and middle school in Antalya, he studied law at Istan ...

, the district mayor of

Başakşehir Başakşehir is one of the 39 second-level districts in Greater Istanbul, Turkey. The population of Başakşehir is 311,095 as of 2012. It is in the European part of Istanbul. History Former name of the area was Azatlık. The area specialized ...

since 2009, was elected as his successor by the Council of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality on 28 September. Kadir Topbaş Chowk, Lahore

Personal life and death

He was married and had two sons and a daughter. In November 2020, Topbaş was hospitalized for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey The COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey is part of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The first case in Turkey was recorded on 11 March, when a l ...

. He died on 13 February 2021, due to

multiple organ failure Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) is altered organ function in an acutely ill patient requiring medical intervention to achieve homeostasis. Although Irwin and Rippe cautioned in 2005 that the use of "multiple organ failure" or "multisy ...

following COVID-19 treatment.

Awards

References

External links

UCLG bio

{{DEFAULTSORT:Topbas, Kadir 20th-century Turkish politicians 21st-century Turkish politicians 1945 births 2021 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey Deaths from multiple organ failure Justice and Development Party (Turkey) politicians Mayors of Istanbul National Salvation Party politicians Istanbul University alumni People from Artvin Province Recipients of the Order of Cultural Merit (Korea) Turkish architects Turkish Sunni Muslims Virtue Party politicians Welfare Party politicians Marmara University alumni Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University alumni