THE MEMORY ROOMS
“Hamallık” or the
profession of being a street porter is one that still exists throughout Eminönü,
the historical peninsula of Istanbul.The project proposes a retirement dwelling
for an aging hamal community, a repository of both the physical and immaterial
bodies of memory.The city is re-imagined as a miniature translated through the
language of the caravansary.The hamal still walks the streets; the topography,
pace and load which he carries are however conceived at a different scale. The hamal
no longer carries the physical fragments of the city but rather immaterial
pieces, his memories of the city.The structure of the mind is represented in
that of the architecture. The Memory Rooms not only house the physical bodies
of the hamals but are themselves architectural mnemonics which within their
materiality and dimension house a set of memories.The physical testing of the
thesis through the construction of hybrid drawings and models expresses an
experimentation and methodology which in many ways resembles the working
processes of the mind itself; inscribing, layering, cutting, screening, and
tracing.
