How Erdogan’s ‘Canary Wharf of Turkey’ became symbol of decline

On the side of a six-lane highway in Istanbul, a gleaming set of new skyscrapers rises through car fumes. One is a twisting column of glass and steel with aesthetic echoes of the Gherkin, and another is fluted like a Turkish teacup. The tallest of the towers is topped with a modernist turret and, like all new state-funded developments in Turkey, there is a mosque.

The Istanbul Finance Centre (IFC) was conceived a decade ago to be the Canary Wharf of Turkey: a purpose-built money district away from the overcrowded city centre, where banks, state financial institutions and foreign investors would gather. Covering 300,000 square metres on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, it includes a shopping centre, conference hall and five-star hotel, with small green