The committee commissioned 50 sculptures to celebrate the anniversary; they would be sculpted by 50 artists and placed in several public spaces in Istanbul, including parks and squares.

[2] Due to insufficient funding, the number of sculptures was reduced to 20 and the Board introduced more stringent qualifications to eliminate 30 artists; the sculptor had to be living in Istanbul and either have received a state award or have had established their personality in the arts sphere.

[3] In addition to Duyar, selected artists included Kuzgun Acar, Tamer Başoğlu, Zerrin Bölükbaşı, Ali Teoman Germaner, Yavuz Görey, Zühtü Müritoğlu, Füsun Onur, Kamil Sonad, Nusret Suman and Seyhun Topuz.

Duyar's portrayal of a woman attempting to break the chains was intended to represent the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, which was later renamed Istanbul.

According to Duyar, the pomegranates in the relief represent Istanbul's many legends; figs its divinity; honeysuckle its air; and the bee its population density, dynamism and abundance.

[11][13] On 10 March 1974, Güzel İstanbul was erected in Karaköy Square, Istanbul,[11] a crowded and open space near the northern end of the Galata Bridge.

[7] The installation of Duyar's sculpture was met with an immediate backlash and calls for its removal by politicians due to its perceived indecency,[14] particularly by members of the National Salvation Party, traditional conservatives who were part of the recently formed coalition government.

The newspaper Sabah presented strong opinions; on 21 March 1974 it printed a front-page article that said the sculpture was corrupting the morals of Muslim Turks.

[12][18] This led to the sculpture appearing on the government's agenda; Deputy-Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan stated it was immoral, and on 17 March suggested its removal.

Seyhun Topuz, a sculptor who also participated in the 50th Anniversary sculptures, said Güzel İstanbul almost ended Turkey's less-than-two-months-old governing coalition.

Hıfzı Veldet Velidedeoğlu stated dominance of the mentality that puts forward religious conservative traditions in the context of fine arts would regress Turkey to a desert of bigotry.

[31] Güzel İstanbul was also defended by cartoonists and caricaturists such as Erdoğan Bozok, Altan Erbulak, Nejat Uygur, Yalçın Çetin, Ferruh Doğan, and Nehar Tüblek, who published cartoons commenting on its removal.

The removal from Karaköy Square was seen as an infringement of freedom of expression in art; in protest, the Association of Turkish Sculptors organized an exhibition around the theme of nudity to show that the creative will of artists would not be inhibited.

[37] On 3 May 1974, through the quiet intervention of Bülent Ecevit,[note 5] Güzel İstanbul was taken to Yıldız Park and left lying on its side underneath a tree.

[12] The move ended the heated political and public debate regarding the sculpture which had lasted almost two months, although Güzel İstanbul was left in an poor physical condition.

[12][27] In 2017, the Istanbul Municipality obscured the sculpture by surrounding it with a fence made of saplings following complaints from parents about its visibility from a nearby playground.