The inspiration of Bauhaus principles on the modern housing in Cyprus

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Modern architecture developed more than a century ago to find solutions suitable to solve the new concerns of the industrial revolution that changed the social idea of the world in all aspects. Bauhaus school which established by Walter Gropius in 1919 adopted too many principles and ideas that were totally new to the architecture concept and theory at that time; their principles started from Simplicity, Angularity, Abstraction, Consistency, Unity, Organization, Economy, Subtlety, Continuity, Regularity, and Sharpness. Those principles affected the architectural world and found its way through many applications in different parts of the world. The unlimited space or the international space that had a significant influence on the architecture space and form as well as the introduction of the new material, the anti- decorating, and Platonic forms had worked to reconstruct the architecture in the world. Cyprus as an Island close to the sources of the movement got the influence from the modern movement. The study will concentrate on Efruz Housing which designed by Ahmet Vural, who developed the project in the 60th of the last century. There will be a comparison with the traditional housing that preceded Mr. Vural work and how the Modernism changed the main features of the housing on the Island.

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The inspiration of Bauhaus principles on the modern housing in Cyprus PhD CandidateMustafa Aziz Amen* Department of Architecture, Cihan University, Iraq E mail: mustafaamen@gmail.com A B S T R A C T Modern architecture developed more than a century ago to find solutions suitable to solve the new concerns of the industrial revolution that changed the social idea of the world in all aspects. Bauhaus school which established by Walter Gropius in 1919 adopted too many principles and ideas that were totally new to the architecture concept and theory at that time; their principles started from Simplicity, Angularity, Abstraction, Consistency, Unity, Organization, Economy, Subtlety, Continuity, Regularity, and Sharpness. Those principles affected the architectural world and found its way through many applications in different parts of the world. The unlimited space or the international space that had a significant influence on the architecture space and form as well as the introduction of the new material, the anti- decorating, and Platonic forms had worked to reconstruct the architecture in the world. Cyprus as an Island close to the sources of the movement got the influence from the modern movement. The study will concentrate on Efruz Housing which designed by Ahmet Vural, who developed the project in the 60th of the last century. The aim of the research is to find the relationship and effects of Bauhaus school in Cyprus through studying and analyzing some of Ahmet vural works. The methodology will depend on a comparison with the traditional housing that preceded Mr. Vural work and how the Modernism changed the main features of the housing on the Island. CONTEMPORARY URBAN AFFAIRS (2017) 1(2), 21-32. https://doi.org/10.25034/ijcua.2017.3645 www.ijcua.com Copyright © 2017 Contemporary Urban Affairs. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Modern architecture developed more than a century ago to find solutions suitable to solve the new concerns of the industrial revolution that changed the social idea of the world in all aspects. Architecture experienced crucial shifts in that era; there were new attitudes in Architecture and Urban Planning, and although the movement made breaks with the past and sometimes denied the whole tradition it also allowed the fundamental principles of architecture in new ways. The movement came with too many features and structures that societies were not familiar with, the new architecture carried many concepts from the industrial revolution most of them stood on the notion of the machine, new Technology, and science. Some of the Modernism characteristics and structures becomes so internationally wide-spread that it works as signs of the movement everywhere in the world. One of the main institutions that established the Modern movement in Europe was the Bauhaus school which established by Walter Gropius in 1919. Bauhaus adopted too many principles and ideas that were totally new to the architecture concept and theory at that time; their principles started from Simplicity, Angularity, Abstraction, Consistency, Unity, Organization, Economy, Subtlety, Continuity, Regularity, and Sharpness. Those because the” physical public space is a result of struggles between different ideologies, discourses, political decisions and daily activities taking place at personal, interpersonal, local, national, supranational and global scales” (Sadri, 2017). Those principles affected the architectural world and found its way through many applications in different parts of the world. So it becomes difficult to think about the modern movement without taking into account those principles and social forces that formalized those principles. The unlimited space or the international space that had a significant influence on the architecture space and form as well as the introduction of the new material, the anti- decorating, and Platonic forms had worked to reconstruct the architecture in the world. Cyprus as an Island close to the sources of the movement got the influence from the modern movement; the Modern Architecture propagated all over the Island with its neat, clean and functional forms. The paper will study the effect of the Bauhaus modernism principles on changing the housing layout and architecture in the Island and how the modern movement changed the traditional way of building on the Island with a particular concentration on Nicosia. The study will concentrate on Efruz Housing which designed by Ahmet Vural, who developed the project in the 60th of the last century. There will be a comparison with the traditional housing that preceded Mr. Vural work and how the Modernism changed the main features of the housing on the Island. 2. The Historical View In this section, there will be a brief discussion about the advent of the modern movement in Art and Architecture. Too many factors and worked together to formulate new ideas and expression in different fields of science and architecture. Within this century, the concept that the Greek culture has high values and should emulate in all life possibilities (Ballantyne, 2004). The very point for Modernism is that “the nature of what constituted beauty and the beautiful was undergoing revision, as was the idea of utility. The connection of beauty to a moral and ethical dimension was passing into a new phase, in which beauty identified, neutrally, with sensation and experience. Thus, beauty was no longer a moral entity or the embodiment of a higher truth; it associated with individual taste and individual striving(Karl, 1985, p. 117). There were a new taste and attitude that needed new approaches and manipulation translated and interpolated in the modern movement in art and architecture. 2.1. Modernity and Modern Architecture The concept of Modernity conveyed in the eighteenth(Heynen, 1999) or the mid of the eighteen centuries by the Philosophers of the Enlightenment in their efforts and seventeenth century (Mallgrave, 2005, p. XV)as an attempt to develop Objective science, universal morality and law, and free art according to their inner logic. The words theory and modern both first came to prominence in the late seventeenth century.

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