The House in Şile

Prof. Dr. Reha Günay's new book, The House in Şile, which intimately recounts the story of the house where he was born and raised in Şile and its preservation-restoration-renovation process, has been published by YEM Yayın.

Reha Günay, whom we know for his original works in fields such as architectural history, art history, traditional building and construction techniques, photography, and archaeology, tells the story of his ancestral home, where he was born and raised in Şile, with an approach distilled from all these fields. Of course, as in all his books, unique photographs accompany the text, adding vitality and emotion to this work.

Reha Günay summarizes his reason for preparing this book for publication as follows:

"...In this book, you will find my memories related to the house where I spent part of my childhood in Şile. I specifically tried to ensure that these memories were solely about the house. I did not include Şile or my other memories. To better understand what I heard as a child, and what I saw and found in the house, I researched them from various sources. Therefore, you will find the fleeting stories of my memories alongside the realities of that time. In this way, I am, in a sense, grounding myself. Who knows, you might even say 'you shouldn't have grounded yourself'! The items and objects in the book are synonymous with the house for me. I cannot imagine 'The House in Şile' without them. Moreover, these objects can be considered an inventory of an Ottoman family from a hundred years ago. Although they may not have monetary value, they are important from the perspective of folklore and cultural history. Such everyday use items are now rarely found in homes or museums. My greatest wish is for these objects to live on with the house..."

Burçin Yılmaz edited The House in Şile, Gökçen Yanlı Atmaca designed the cover, Mecit Demir did the proofreading, Hüseyin Aktürk handled the graphic design, and Kemal Kara prepared it for printing.