Migrating Spaces

Migrating Spaces / 2014-2015 // © Stefanie Bürkle - VG Bild Kunst

Turkish migrants who have lived in Germany for a long period of time and return to their home country (Paraschou 2001, 89) believe that once they return, they will finally no longer feel like foreigners. Back in Turkey, however, as neighbours of non-migrants, they soon realise how German they have become over the many years. Their spatial conceptions and images have changed, and they bring these with them, into and through their houses. Often the windows the returned migrants look out of have been transported from Germany to Turkey. They have accompanied the returned migrants on their journey back to Turkey out of mistrust for the competence of local construction workers. Then they look out these self-installed windows into their gardens. Or, if they own an apartment or a house in a sitesi, a construction project consisting of colonies of privately owned apartments or houses in holiday regions for the Turkish middle class, then out of standard windows into the green areas landscaped for them there. The sitesi too should be viewed as leisure architecture, since they are not intended for heterogenous use, nor for a heterogenous social group like other urban construction projects. However, their design is completely different to the building complex across from me. These colonies communicate the idea of a Mediterranean village or an American suburb. Anyone who lives in one, in their own house in a sitesi colony, has made it, and wishes to demonstrate their social importance and economic status. Thus they choose to live in a house that is unlike local houses, somehow more Turkish and more German, German-Turkish in a certain sense.

The art and research project “Migrating Spaces – Identity through Architecture in the Context of Turkish Remigration” investigated the apartments and houses of returned migrants. In interviews with the owners, we were able to find out more about the design process and the meaning of built space. Using visual field research, we were also able to develop a typology of remigrant housing.

Usually, a family or person’s entire life savings from their working life in Germany is invested over many years in a construction project at home in Turkey. Conflicts about the progress of the build and construction techniques with companies or individuals on-site, arguments about design or the perimeters of the property with the neighbours, or in the family itself about the use of the house in Turkey are frequent. If the project does not fail and is finally finished, the hoped-for recognition of social success often does not materialise when the migrants return. In fact, the property often even leads to social conflicts, resentment from the neighbours and exclusion. The returned migrants’ enthusiasm for talking about and providing information about their houses and the experiences associated with them is an indication that this group of people and their experiences between German and Turkish societies has received little attention until now. In Turkey, the house-owners were proud and happy to talk to us, and were actually touched by our interest and the opportunity express their views on their time in Germany. This sometimes resulted in very personal conversations. Often, it was only in the second interview that we were able to finally get to our actual questions about their spatial conceptions and the construction of their houses, since they usually first wanted to talk about their personal story of the separation of the family, the exclusion they had experienced and pain they had suffered both in Germany and in Turkey. Most of the time, no one had ever asked them about these things before, not in Germany and definitely not in Turkey, where returned migrants and their houses are often simply referred to as nouveau riche Almanci (Germans).

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The art and research project is funded by by