‘Hiç‘ means ‘nothing’ or ‘nothingness’ in Turkish.
Hiç was founded in 1996 at Teşvikiye, Istanbul as an interior design and furniture studio by Emel Güntaş. She did not have a university degree in design or architecture, but had just studied economics.
She thinks design is so essential for our lives so that it cannot be left only to architects or designers. It can be done by everybody and for everyone, not only for the privileged.
Now she moved her studio into a renovated wooden mansion located in the Tomtom neighborhood of Beyoğlu, Istanbul. The mansion is part of a building complex which was during the 19th century called ”Soeurs Garde-Malades” and was used as a house of nuns looking after patients coming from diplomatic and expat circles.
She says that she feels all the healing spirits of the nuns who lived in this place in the past and she considers herself as a healer for misdesigns.
