Created within Rem Koolhaas’s curatorial theme “Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014,” Places of Memory approaches the exhibition brief through Murat’s own lived experience. Instead of addressing a century of architectural history, the installation turns to the fifty years that shaped his personal relationship with Istanbul, tracing the city as it was encountered from childhood into his life as an architect.

Murat revisited a series of places that marked different stages of his life, from early school years to the neighborhoods and buildings that later informed his professional work. These sites were reinterpreted in collaboration with five artists, each responding to a brief that invited them to translate Murat’s memories and the city’s shifting character into new visual and spatial expressions. The resulting installation reveals how an individual’s recollections can illuminate the broader cultural evolution of Istanbul.

The exhibition unfolds through a dark, tunnel-like space that leads to its central moment of reflection: the story of the Atatürk Cultural Center. For Murat, AKM has long carried a layered significance. It is both a cultural landmark embedded in the modern identity of Istanbul and a building deeply tied to his personal history, first designed by his father, Hayati Tabanlıoğlu, and later re-envisioned by Murat himself. The presentation of AKM’s full narrative within the installation bridges memory across generations, merging family legacy with the architectural history of the city.

Places of Memory becomes a meditation on how a city is seen, remembered and transformed over time. Through Murat’s lens, the installation suggests that the absorption of modernity is not only a collective phenomenon but also a deeply personal one, unfolding across the span of a single human life.