In this piece, I first introduce Pera’s nineteenth-century sewers as a gateway
to exploring the district’s interconnections with its surrounding geographies,
which requires a close study of infrastructural plans. I then propose the
methodological virtues of juxtaposing these with insurance maps, frequently
utilized in the conventional histories of the district. I argue that a critical reflection
on the way we use these visual sources is helpful to dissect the limited
frames that structure our understanding of the district’s history, geography, and
layers of social topography.