In Greece, Morocco… and Bauhaus

Small, white, cubic houses as far as the eye can see. They stretch up the hillside as if piled on top of each other or even jumbled up, framed by bright pink bougainvilleas. Every island hopper knows this typical and wonderful sight when entering the harbour bay of one of the many small Greek islands. Not always perfect and at right angles, they nevertheless appear puristic and straight-lined due to the white lime plaster – almost like a Bauhaus housing development.

Cubic designs, white façades and flat roofs – the idea of Bauhaus architecture is obvious, and many probably take it for granted that this type of construction was an idea of Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. The combination of purist forms with industrial building materials is certainly the defining characteristic of the building style of the pioneers of modern architecture. But the inspiration definitely came from the Mediterranean region – from Greece. Or Morocco.

But where are the bright colours and geometric patterns for which Morocco in particular is known, but which can also be found in Greece, readers may wonder, and rightly so. But the Bauhaus was not as pure and simple as the architectural shell – and the buildings were often captured in black and white photographs. The famous Bauhaus Masters’ Houses also feature a range of colours, from lemon-yellow façades to pink walls and gold-coloured details. This is somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Greek temples, which were once so colourfully painted – except that hardly anyone knows about it. In Arab countries and Greece, too, ornamentation and colours are often only found behind a plain building façade, hidden behind a richly decorated iron or a blue-painted wooden door. Speaking of colours: the female weavers at Bauhaus (the textile workshops were dominated by fascinating women!) drew inspiration from traditional. Moroccan weaving and knotting techniques. And currently, the combination of purist architecture with colourful interiors and textiles from African or Arab countries is trending – for example, the trendy Berber rugs form a vibrant contrast to the often exposed concrete walls.

A direct stylistic connection between Greek and Moroccan architecture is not immediately apparent. However, the influence of traditional Greek and Arab architecture on the design vocabulary of Bauhaus is well documented: for example, Adolf Loos, one of the pioneers of functional architecture, was fascinated by the ‘white walls’ of the cities after a journey that took him from the Balkans to Greece, Turkey and on to Algeria and Morocco at the beginning of the last century, and Le Corbusier’s Voyage d’Orient was formative for his work. Villa Allegonda, with its asymmetrically arranged white cubes, built by the Dutchman J.J.P. Oud in Katwijk aan Zee, is also reminiscent of North African architecture. And the painter Paul Klee was enchanted by the whitewashed cubic houses on his trip to Tunisia, writing about them that they were ‘angular and right-angled and angular again’. Bauhaus architecture has lost none of its relevance to this day – quite the opposite: cubic construction has remained and is more modern than ever. Fortunately, the times are long gone, when the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, built in 1927 by the Deutscher Werkbund under the direction of Mies van der Rohe, was mocked as an ‘Arab village’ because of the white, cubic houses with flat roofs and was in fact threatened with demolition.

Whether the white cubes came from Morocco to Greece or the other way around remains unclear – they look beautiful in both.  What is certain, however, is that Bauhaus art in turn influenced the teaching at the art school in Casablanca and that cubic buildings by former Bauhaus students can also be found in Athens. And so the influence of the white cubes returns to their origin in the opposite direction. A give and take (or rather, a take and give) and a togetherness, as one would wish for on so many levels – and not only in the case of Greece, Morocco and Bauhaus.

Text: Tina Barankay

Photo: Joshua Rondeau / Unsplash