private and public use of the living room - Bilkent University

Previous studies indicate that examining rooms in the house with binary oppositions
is not enough to explain such a complex relationship (Rechavi, 2004). Thus, the
current study employs the opposition of public and private not for the house as a
whole but, for a single room (the living room) in order to examine the activities that
are performed in that particular room.
After mentioning the previous studies about home and its specific rooms in relation
with binary oppositions, the functions of rooms of the house in different cultures
are examined. According to a study that examines the home model of Italian
society, three basic house types are; “(1) bourgeois traditional, (2) popular
traditional, and (3) modern” (Giuliani, 1987, p. 182). The bourgeois traditional
house is constructed on the opposition of “…private part of the home, not in view
to strangers, and a reception part, designed to receive guests” (p. 183). Besides, this
type of a house contains mono- functionality of rooms which means assigning a
single function to one room when possible. In bourgeois traditional Italian house
there is a separate family room- “tinello (den) or soggiorno” (p. 183)- in which
family members eat and spend their day (see Figure 2.1 for a soggiorno). In addition
to the family room, there is a separate living room which is the reception area for
the guests. In the popular traditional house, the main rooms are kitchen and
bedroom. The social interaction with the outsiders takes place not in the parlor-
“salotto” (p. 184)- but in the dining room- “stanza da pranzo” (p. 184) (see Figure
2.2 for a salotto). The dining room is used for special occasions “… such as baptisms,
weddings and holiday dinners” and the family spend their daily life in the kitchen.
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