Vernacular values in public housing

The crisis in modern architecture in the middle of the twentieth century brought about a reaction to total Utopian solutions and ideas and the realization of the importance of ‘place’ and identity. These notions found expression, among others, in a renewed interest in vernacular construction. Vernacular construction is evolutionary and contains key, a priori, aspects of identity and place. As such it constituted a focus of attention and gained special exposure and popularity after the exhibition ‘Architecture without Architects’, held in MoMA, New York in 1964. As a result of this attention, the patio, that external room constituting the heart of the house in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean basin and in the Far East, gained architectural significance. At the same time it found a place in modern housing in the Western world.