Beyond the Word-Hatice Kübra Tekin
Located in Kahramanmaraş, a city with a deeply rooted literary heritage, this project emerges from the cultural memory associated with the Necip Fazıl Cultural Center, a significant public building in the collective urban consciousness. Rather than erasing the existing structure, the design carefully integrates preserved architectural elements that hold symbolic meaning. These components are reinterpreted as spatial links between past and present.
The conceptual foundation, “Beyond the Word,” explores the architectural manifestation of literature, voice, and memory. In a city known for its poets, writers, and oral traditions, the project transforms the act of expression into a spatial experience. This is not merely a building; it is a continuation of Kahramanmaraş’s literary culture through contemporary architectural language.
Materiality plays a key role: the concrete mass represents the weight of memory and permanence, while strategically placed skylights introduce natural light as a metaphor for reflection, openness, and ongoing interpretation. Spatial transitions, surface treatments, and light play reinforce the conceptual layers throughout the building.
By protecting select elements of the original structure and embedding them within a new spatial system, the project preserves not only the physical memory of the site but also its emotional and cultural significance. It creates a space where the city’s narrative identity is both remembered and reimagined. Architecture here becomes a medium, between silence and speech, between the remembered and the yet-to-be-written.
By embedding preserved architectural fragments into a new spatial language, the project transforms the site into a living memory landscape. It not only protects the identity of a culturally significant building but also reactivates it for contemporary use, providing the people of Kahramanmaraş with a renewed space for cultural participation, creative expression, and shared meaning. Ultimately, architecture becomes both a record and a resonance, an evolving space that remembers, reflects, and responds.
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