Local interpretations of modern housing in post-republican period in İzmir-Turkey

Abstract

The modernisation process in Turkey which had started with the proclamation of the Republic in 1923 has also influenced architecture and then has led to the emergence of modern design. International architectural languages began to be sprawled much faster in cities like İzmir where different cultures have been living together for centuries. The city plan, prepared for the completely burned areas in the fire in 1924, shaped today's İzmir urban pattern as the first example of the modernist/positivist approach of the period. Due to the development of planning laws, different morphologies have emerged periodically in the city's housing architecture. The modernist apartment buildings of the city, which were built especially in Alsancak, Güzelyalı, and Karșıyaka after the 1950s, were diversified in other districts of the city in the following years. This architectural language tried to integrate mutually different international architectural language on behalf of local modernism in the city. This paper aims to present these local modernism efforts in terms of the multi-story apartment buildings of İzmir. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the importance of apartment blocks which have had an important role in the identity of the city by revealing the architects and buildings of that period. These buildings which both reflect international architectural languages and local modernisms are investigated in terms of their architectural style, plan layout, facade characteristics, material selection, and interior elements. Relationships and syntheses between international modernism and local culture will be searched through analysing pioneering apartment blocks constructed between 1950 and 1980 in the city.