Waterfront Landscape Design – Kartal

“A Song of the Sea, Speaking Once Again”


Kartal, my friend, was once a song.
A song of salt in the air, of children running barefoot over the stones.
The Princes’ Islands stood on the horizon like silent poems,
and the people — simple, honest —
let their worries float in the water
while the sun turned the day to gold.

Then came the great dream of the city —
visions hard as concrete,
coastal roads like scars across the heart of the shore,
and the song fell silent.
The people now stood behind fences of asphalt,
and the sea,
once their mirror,
was now just a picture from old memories.

But now,
now the human hand holds a different tool —
not the jackhammer,
but the idea.
Not just a plan, but hope.

TCA didn’t merely draw.
No — they listened to the place,
spoke with the earth,
with the wind,
with the old shadows of the pines.

The levels shift,
like verses in a poem.
Open squares like exclamation points,
protected spaces like parentheses of silence.
The trees don’t just stand —
they sing,
they shield,
they whisper to people:
Here you are safe.
Here you may breathe.

And behold —
the Princes’ Islands wave once again.
Not just from afar,
but from within the hearts of those who sit, walk, and dream here.
The sea was never gone.
It was just buried under noise for a while.

Now the land rises,
the view opens,
and with it, the soul.

A city park — yes.
But more than that:
A promise.
A place where life begins to hear itself again.
Where landscape is not a backdrop,
but an answer.
To the call for calm.
For belonging.
For a simple, honest day in the light.

This is Kartal.
The new song of the sea.
Not invented —
rediscovered.