Onur Can Tepe has called many apartments in Rotterdam home. They are portals between him, the past and the present of the city. Seeping through the gaps in the walls he would try to fill or the worn-out floor planks he would replace, history makes its presence known in each apartment, breaking the illusion of tabula rasa. Through the traces of past renovations and the objects or notes left behind by previous inhabitants, Onur fantasises about the oodles of strangers he has shared bedrooms with, who let themselves in by flirting with its penetrable doors.
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Transparent Apartment
No:
1
The only time it isn’t worrisome to find a note written by a stranger inside your apartment is after you just moved in. As I stepped into my first apartment in Rotterdam, stripped of any furniture, colours or even flooring, I felt as though the space was untouched. Having remained empty for a long while during the post-2008-recession stagnation in Rotterdam, there was a certain motionlessness established in it, hanging there for months since the last time its door was slammed shut. So much so that when I visited it for the first time I believed it had never been inhabited. There was nothing to give it any effect of history or any peculiarity that would reveal the character of the previous tenant, until I found a little bit of evidence, suddenly breaking the spell of newness. It was a piece of paper with a handwritten note on it in the cellar, forgotten by the previous tenant. There was a telephone number, under it the name ‘Joost,’ and some attempt to draw a heart which looked more like a fat apple without a stalk. Had this call for adventure by a romantic called Joost ever been reciprocated by the previous tenant? Did they ever actually meet and perhaps have sex in the room that I was now going to call my bedroom? As I became conscious of the apartment’s past, I started imagining the life of the previous tenant in this place. A ghost in pyjamas, or maybe in underwear or naked, revealing their presence to me and reminding me of all the other past Rotterdammers who went through this space, a two-bedroom apartment that had existed since the 1980s. I might have been a newcomer, but the city had been alive a long time, breathing in and out people who have all been, at least for a certain period, Rotterdammers.
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Transparent Apartment
No:
2
Five years later, the very same cellar was filled with clothes, books, tools and furniture of all the souls that had passed through one of the two bedrooms of my apartment: students, expats, adventurers touring Europe, people who were still mostly mobile and not very attached to their possessions. Anything that could slow them down in their ongoing pursuit of ‘belonging’ was left behind. Clothes worn by various bodies, architecture magazines that belonged to Berlage Institute students, and sports shoes that had kissed the floors of the nearby Basic-Fit. As I was preparing for my departure, I started a Marktplaats auction. Having cleaned up all the leftovers, having washed away all the wounds and memories as if no one had ever been there, the illusion of a tabula rasa was complete and I was ready to present the space to its new occupants. However, it felt almost like a betrayal of my past in this apartment to leave it as though it had never been lived in. I decided to write
a note on a piece of paper similar to that I had once found and to leave it behind so my ghost might linger and give a glimpse of a past the new tenants will never truly know or understand. It said: ‘A bed adventure between three. Surely, a little bit of joy. But it never really works when dawn breaks into your home.’
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Transparent Apartment
No:
3
When I moved to Blijdorp after five years in Rotterdam, I was already well aware that ‘Blij’ meant ‘happy’ and ‘dorp’ meant a place populated by judgemental white people where quietness was perceived as a virtue. It was a winter evening when my partner found a three-page-long handwritten letter resting by our front door. It was a plea against the upcoming party plans in one of the apartments on our street. The author of the letter was anticipating a great deal of sound pollution and proposed we stand against it, together. She used the words ‘a grievous incidence’ when describing how it would possibly be remembered in the future history of our street. She urged us to take a side in this conflict, and finished her letter with a tacit threat suggesting that neutrality was not an option: ‘A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.’
Our private space brought communal responsibilities whether we liked it or not, and we felt the thinness of the borders separating the inside of our apartment from the outside. It turns out that it is not only the ghosts of old Rotterdammers that infiltrate our apartments, but also neighbours who are ready to go to a battle with you or against you. Strangely, once again as the borders melted away, I felt aroused. It was hot to be observed.
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Transparent Apartment
No:
4
One doesn’t understand how much spontaneity plays a role in your life until you have to bid for an apartment in fifteen minutes. If you were bidding to buy an apartment in Rotterdam when the interest rate was below 2%, you know what I am talking about. So when the realtor called to inform me that my bid had been accepted, I wasn’t entirely sure which apartment he was talking about or what kind of a neighbourhood Middeland was. Upon moving in, I embarked on a renovation project in the 110-year-old apartment, which was merely a new addition to the layers of material history of this place. It was like archaeological research figuring out all the decisions made over the years: where do these cables go, why are the radiator pipes here? I once found a cigarette burn under the floorboards; it must have been more than sixty years old. Alongside the collective history of Rotterdam there appear to be mini-histories for each apartment that never meet the eye except during surgery.
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Transparent Apartment
No:
5
When I was laying insulation under my floor between the beams I noticed a tiny bit of light coming in. There was a hole in the wooden surface, and I could see directly into the living room of my downstairs neighbour – she was napping in front of her TV! I was startled and pulled myself back, and immediately felt I had done something I was not supposed to. Such strong curiosity to look into a world that was so close and yet so far was creepy. The sensation of noticing how near we are, leading parallel lives in adjacent spaces was overwhelming. I kept on looking in and pulling myself back. She was lying there, in a twisted position, unaware of my gaze; my curiosity was starting to border on voyeurism. At the same time my anxiety grew that she could look up at any second and notice me watching before I could pull myself back. In my panic I did the stupidest thing you could do: I thought it would be better to report myself than be found out, and blurted out, ‘Hello!’
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Transparent Apartment
No:
6
One day I received a phone call from the same neighbour asking me if I was ‘still’ in the apartment. I instantly knew that the word ‘still’ was an unusual choice and became aware of sirens that were getting alarmingly close. ‘There is a fire in your apartment,’ she said, and urged me to leave immediately. A neighbour on the other side of the street had seen smoke and called 112. There was no fire: I had been sawing wood with a blunt blade, creating smoke. I hung up the phone and calmly started going down the stairs to tell everyone there was nothing to worry about. However, before I could step out, my front door was broken with a kick, and a group of firefighters stormed inside to rescue me. Having seen an ambulance, two fire trucks and several policemen, I quickly concluded that there was no way I could convince them everything was under control. Before I could articulate anything, I was given a blanket, and offered cigarettes, and I sat behind the ambulance, smoking quietly and in complete acceptance of my fate.
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Transparent Apartment
No:
7
In the aftermath of a group of men bursting into my apartment, I felt alienated from it. As they passed through, they left traces of their presence: unplugged electric outlets, the broken door, footsteps all over, and a 250 euro bill for alarming the fire department outside of working hours! My ownership of this highly flammable space had been momentarily suspended for the greater good of public safety, and it now felt strange to be back in it, to register how fragile my ownership is, and to discover that doors are breakable and boundaries are tresspassable. To reposition myself in this world and to refind the only home I could claim as mine with certainty, I started taking a shower. I looked for peace under the pressure of pouring water, searching for an inner place to re-meet myself, and I suddenly felt a familiar sensation between my legs and looked down. I had an undeniable hard-on.