Turkey

housEmotion

Tabanlioğlu Architects explored the ambiguous question of where we belong. ‘housEmotion’ looked like a house, but was it a home?

Tabanlıoğlu Architects’ installation considered the emotional meaning of home in an age of increasingly transient living. “There is a variety of perceptions of what home really is today,” the practice said. “The question ‘Where are you from?’ prompted myriad answers. The meaning of home for a person may simply be a smartphone with a full memory.” Or it may be something more fundamental to our sense of self – Tabanlıoğlu also referenced the psychoanalyst DW Winnicott and his groundbreaking work on childhood development, Home is Where We Start From.

Tabanlıoğlu’s pavilion started with the most elemental idea of a house: a cubic form. This was created using a series of white rods, a simple border demarcating the limits of the home. The gaps between the rods lent a semi-transparency to the structure, drawing visitors in but also allowing the home to dissolve into the wider environment. The walls, perhaps even the home itself, were seen to be illusory.

Once visitors stepped inside the structure, it again took on the homely role of a shelter. A divan was placed in the heart of the space, which Tabanlıoğlu described as being “like a mother’s lap”. It was a place where visitors wanted to spend time, relax and meet new people. At night, lights embedded in the rods turned the structure into a glowing lantern, or perhaps a warm hearth.

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Photography: Ed Reeve

Photography: Ed Reeve

Credits

Administering Bodies:

Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey,Turkish Embassy in London

Design Team:

Tabanlıoğlu Architects

Designers:

Melkan Gürsel, Murat Tabanlıoğlu, Ali Çalışkan, Deniz Hıdıroğlu, Oktay Murat, Sena Altundağ, Gonca Arık Çalışkan, Yusufcan Akyüz, Elif Simge Fettahoğlu

Curator:

Tabanlıoğlu Architects

Supporting Bodies:

Nurus & Tepta

2018 Exhibitors

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