Research methods we used for our project included data collection, observation, interview and looking through the resources. The first thing we did was go through the resources in the libraries. We found a lot of books related to the topic. Each of these books were productions of different fields of expertise. For this reason we asked the help of our teachers in order to find the related parts in the resources.

We interviewed two academics who were specialists in the area of History of Art. They gave us the information about the characteristics of the fountains in İstanbul, the importance of water in our culture, water architecture and why İstanbul was described as ‘the capital of cultures’.

We first interviewed Hayri Fehmi Yılmaz from ‘Kültür Bilincini Geliştirme Vakfı’. We did this interview during a trip which we did in different parts of Sultanahmet. That trip was full of unforgettable memories. It was great fun for us to do the interview in different parts of Sultanahmet and places like ‘Çelik Gülersoy Library’ which is in Soğukçeşme Street.

We had our second interview withYusuf Aslan, district councilor. We discussed about the historical monuments, Cumhuriyet Fountain and the general characteristics of the people living in that district, etc. He informed us about the main problems they encountered.

Mr Aslan, the district councilor mentioned the problems about the authorization for the (architectural) development plan, the low education level of the people and lack of sensitiveness for cultural inheritance. We informed him about our project and asked for his help to contact the people in the region.

We had our third interview with Aziz Doğanay, the art historian from Marmara University. He informed us about the importance of water in our culture, fountains in İstanbul, etc.

The most important parts of gathering data in our project were, the trip to Mustafa Paşa Town and the field search because we hadn’t been there before. We had no idea about the town or the fountain. We had the chance to analyze the historical structure of the town and the characteristics of the fountain. We took some photos and recorded the town.

It was quite useful to see the historical monuments and Golden Horn. Actually, the most exciting parts of this project were the field search and the interviews. Perhaps these were the moments we really felt like we were in the project. On the other hand getting information directly was much more didactic and easy to keep in mind.