The Poetic Imagination of Time and Space: In-Between Spaces in Mardin

Abstract

This study argues that the continuity of time and space in architecture is established in in-between spaces and that this will become comprehensible through poetic imagination. In-between spaces are accepted with their in-between situations that provide integrity and fluency between spaces rather than an imposing understanding with opposites. The space that gains its existence by presenting itself to the person experiencing it is in a mutual interaction with the subject. This interaction is provided by the time factor. Thus, it is understood that time and space cannot be thought independently or separately and that people actually experience time in space. This understanding is achieved through mathematical or geometric precise calculations, rather than phenomenology. Many inventory studies have been conducted on traditional Mardin architecture. The majority of these studies are quantitative research. Thus, it is tried to obtain a lot of data about the construction technique of an architectural element, formal or historical. However, these studies are formal, do not include the experience of the user in relation to construction technique, measure or history. As a result of the phenomenology which is the method of this study, the experience of the human being with the space is revealed on the ontological basis where the space evolves as a “place”. Thus, the epistemological approaches in cartesian thought were criticized and new debates about the phenomenological thought developed by Heidegger and the existence of man in space were tried to be captured. Nowadays, the practices that cause us to break off from the urban scale to the interior design scale lose the continuity by drawing definite boundaries between the subject and the space and between the space and the space. Modernism tries to dominate the space by limiting it to pieces, as it does not fully comprehend the time. In this context, modernism, which has formal concerns, limits the spaces in terms of form and functionality by bringing absolute definitions to spaces. Phenomenology sees space as a human anatomy as if it were an organism, constantly flowing together and expanding when necessary. This approach is done in a poetic language. With this poetic approach, the subject can experience the space from different perspectives for various functions. Thus, space not defined by absolute boundaries can be shaped with temporary boundaries over time.