Abstract:

Ula, one of the districts of Muğla, has largely preserved its traditional house texture. Houses in the district are mostly built on one wing of their gardens and have one or two floors. In Ula, as in the tradition of Ottoman-Turkish houses, there are examples of houses without a sofa, as well as plan types with an outer sofa, an inner sofa and a middle sofa. Most of the traditional Ula houses that survive today are examples from the early 1900s. There are more than two hundred historical houses in the district. Most of the residences, of which the single-storey samples constitute the majority, are about to turn into ruins. Ali Efendi’s House is among them. Today, the building is idle and losing its architectural feature day by day. In this study, the architectural and ornamental features of Ali Efendi’s House, which was not directly subject to any publication before, were examined. In addition to determining the place of the house in question between Ula and other Ottoman-Turkish houses besides the reflections of the local architectural features of the Ula houses, including his father Ali Efendi’s House, are emphasized on various construction activities carried out by Nail Çakırhan. Ali Efendi’s House, is one of the two-floor houses in Ula in harmony with nature. This house is also the house of the father of architect Nail V. Çakırhan (1910-2008), who won the Ağahan Award for applying the architectural tradition of Ula in his own house. The house of Ali Efendi, the father of Nail Çakırhan, where he was born and raised, is located at number 27 in the Alparslan Neighborhood of Muğla’s Ula District. The house was built on the northeast wing of the two-decare garden. The green painted lamb door, located in the northwest corner of the garden, opens to the courtyard. The building exhibits an example of the plan type with a middle sofa on both the ground floor and the upper floor. In the middle of the front of the house, there is a hexagonal projection of the ground and upper floor sofas rising on two floors. There is a kitchen, a middle sofa, a toilet and a bathroom on the ground floor. There are resting areas on the upper floor, including three rooms and a sofa. The connection between the two floors of the residence is provided by a single arm ladder located at the front of the house. Ali Efendi’s House was built in the years when Western influences began to reflect on the residential architecture in Ula. Spatial change in the process applied to a limited extent in the house, which largely preserved its traditional style. World-famous architect Nail Çakırhan has taken the traditional architecture of Ula, especially his father Ali Efendi’s House, as an example in his professional life. With the awareness of growing up in Ottoman-Turkish residential architecture in Ula, he has provided practical solutions to the realization of many house and tourism businesses in the province of Muğla. In this context, Nail Çakırhan, who pioneered the revival of the historical texture that was on the verge of extinction in the region, played an important role in keeping the architecture named after him in the region by being influenced by other Ula houses as well as his father’s house.

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