Dream Home

By Brend

All architecture carries the memory of the womb.

Before entering the world, every human being exists within a completely enclosed space: warm, dark, surrounded by fluid, without language or boundaries. This primordial internal space forms the archetypal imagination of “home.” From caves to houses, from cities to nations, humans have continuously constructed new structures in the external world, seeking to recreate the sense of being enveloped. Architecture is not only a container for dwelling but also a medium through which humans attempt to extend this original experience—a sustained reproduction of internal space.

Yet in contemporary society, this stability of the internal has begun to loosen.

Family structures are in flux, urban life is highly mobile, and intimate relationships are constantly being reorganized. At the same time, digital technologies penetrate private life: experiences are recorded, disseminated, and transformed into data, and interpersonal relationships increasingly rely on screens and networks. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman describes this condition as “liquid modernity.” In such a social structure, stable relationships gradually dissolve, and everything exists in a state of continuous flow and reconfiguration. The traditional notion of “home” is no longer a fixed location, but rather a temporarily generated structure—an interior that forms fleetingly amid a changing world.

Technology is also reshaping the body itself. From assisted reproduction to genetic technologies, the process of childbirth has shifted from a natural phenomenon to one that can be planned and managed. Donna Haraway, in her discussion of cyborgs, notes that as technology enters the body, the boundaries between the natural and the artificial blur, and the body becomes a structure continuously rewritten. Under these historical conditions, the womb acquires new cultural significance: it is no longer merely an organ of life generation but emerges as an archetypal model of internal space.

Guo Yuqiao, as both an architect and an artist, has long explored questions of “dwelling” between space and the body. In her view, the body itself is a residence: it is a house of the spirit, nourishing and protecting the individual while simultaneously establishing limits and boundaries. In her paintings, the body frequently functions as a metaphor for “home.” These bodies are stretched, transformed, or recombined, sometimes resembling architectural structures. Here, the body ceases to be a mere individual form and becomes a spatial entity—an internal environment in continuous flux.

In this sense, Guo’s paintings can be understood as a form of intimate architecture. This architecture is not composed of walls and structural elements but emerges from the interplay of body, affect, and imagination. It possesses both sheltering qualities and a subtle instability.

Her imagery rarely derives directly from visual references in reality; it is more closely generated from memory and dream. Dreams play a significant role: memories are rearranged in them, and experiences of reality shift in the process. Painting becomes a means of capturing these ephemeral structures—giving form to thoughts that otherwise exist only fleetingly.

Blue constitutes the persistent atmosphere of these spaces. It evokes both the deep sea and the cosmos, the internal fluid environment of the body, and the cold light of digital screens. Life forms float and move within this space, visible to one another yet maintaining subtle distance. This distance is both psychological and structural, signaling the particular kind of solitude experienced by contemporary individuals in a highly connected society: seemingly close and intimate, yet ultimately unreachable.

Thus, Dream Home does not aim to reproduce domestic life or motherhood; rather, it constitutes an imaginative experiment in modes of dwelling. As traditional family structures erode and the body is increasingly shaped by technology, humans continue to seek a location in which their spirit can reside. If the “home” of the past originated in the womb as an archetypal space, then today, a new form of home is emerging. It belongs neither entirely to architecture nor solely to the body, but is instead continuously generated in the interstice between reality and imagination.

Dream Home serves as a metaphor for this space—a structure still in formation, as yet unnamed.