Turkey

housEmotion

Tabanlıoğlu Architects will explore the ambiguous question of where we belong. housEmotion looks like a house, but is it a home?

The installation considers 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 says. “The question ‘Where are you from?’ prompts 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 reference the psychoanalyst DW Winnicott and his groundbreaking work on childhood development, Home is Where We Start From.

Tabanlıoğlu’s pavilion will start with the most elemental idea of a house: a cubic form. This will be created using a series of white rods, a simple border demarcating the limits of the home. The gaps between the rods lend 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, are seen to be illusory.

Once visitors step inside the structure, it will take on the homely role of a shelter. A divan is placed in the heart of the space, which Tabanlıoğlu describe as being “like a mother’s lap”. It is a place where visitors will want to spend time, relax and meet new people. At night, lights embedded in the rods will turn the structure into a glowing lantern, or perhaps a warm hearth.

 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