Insurance map showing the location of wooden and brick buildings in the Findikli neighborhood. Pervititch, 1926

Until the mid-nineteenth century, areas destroyed during a fire were rebuilt according to pre-existing street patterns. However fires came to be seen as providing an opportunity for 'regularizing' the urban fabric. In the aftermath of fires, streets could be widened and straightened, new building materials employed, as a way of modernizing the city while simultaneously reducing the risk of devastating conflagrations. The city's first planning commission was created following the 1865 fire to oversee a program of urban redesign and road improvement in the area destroyed by the fire.