Nail Çakırhan (1910-2008) was born in Ula, near Muğla in the south-west corner of Turkey.
A poet and journalist, Çakırhan often accompanied his archaeologist wife, Halet Çambel, on her field trips, and, while doing so, developed a taste for the traditional building style of the southern Aegean, which was already starting to disappear.
Never formally trained as an architect and already into his forties, Çakırhan cut his designer teeth on the restoration of his mother’s old house which he returned to its original discreet beauty. He then bought a piece of land to the south of Akyaka where he built a retirement home for himself and his wife, using age-old methods of craftsmanship. For this work he was awarded the much-coveted Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1983.
