1 place 33 rooms – Portrait of a house

Christine Petersen

1 place 33 rooms “Memory, including collective memory, is linked to houses. When we eradicate a place in the exterior world, we lose a major pathway into our own history.” Lena Lindgren, Morgenbladet, 2. November 2012 The project is based on a real place, a house in Oslo. I am interested in how our memory connects with places and houses, in expanding our understanding of what a house and a place are, seen from the perspective of our own cultural background, time and history – and in the perceptions and experiences that are associated with it. In the significance of how the rooms are organised in relation to each other and what happens if the room is freed from the context in which it stands. It is rare to experience an isolated room that doesn’t relate to anything else, torn from its place, time and spatial context. The neutral room simply doesn’t exist. A key aspect of architecture is the experience of going from one room to another. The way the rooms are organised in relation to each other affects the sense of what it is like to be in the house. From the starting point that architecture begins with a single room, I have explored what criteria a space has to fulfil to be called a room and how big it has to be. Everyone relates to rooms – whether it is a private room like a bedroom, kitchen, dining room, or a public space such as a café, library or railway station. The work comprises six physical installations, plus the book and archive “33 fortellinger” (33 stories).

NR 10 Toalett

Christine: Vannet i toalettskålen frøs til is i desember 2009 selv om rommet ligger midt i huset.

Inga: På toalettene, og særlig på doen i gangen, går rørene synlig på veggen. Man kan høre at det rumler i dem. Slik er det jo ikke lenger. Jeg tenker på lukten av såpe sammen med rustent jern. Det minner meg om farmors hus.

Martin: ”Rom med to dører er alltid litt utfordrende, særlig når funksjonen er et toalett. Det er et sjarmerende rom, men ofte litt kaldt. Jeg blir ofte sittende å vente litt på det varme vannet.”

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