216 217

T H E OT TO M A N E M P I R E E A R LY OT TO M A N A R C H I T E C T U R E

Above A band of calligraphy forms part

of the ornate decoration on this 1396

column from the western portal of the

Ulu Çami in Bursa.

tradition developed by the Seljuks and a Byzantine influence.However, it is in the treatment ofspace under the dome and in thetechniques adopted in order tosupport it that Ottoman originalityand Byzantine inheritance arebetter demonstrated. The earliestsurviving Ottoman mosques werecubic buildings crowned withrelatively large domes resting onpendentives or squinches thatbridged the triangular spacesbetween the corners of the wallsand the perimeter of the domes.However, it was their builders’constant concern to expand thespace under the dome withoutbreaking up its unity with bulkysupports or blind walls. An easysolution was to increase the numberof domes and place them on archesresting on columns or pillars.

Above Huge square pillars inside

the early 15th-century Eski Çami

in Edirne, support the arches and

domes above.

Left The Ottoman Empire was formed

by Turkish tribes from Anatolia.The

expanding state included Bursa to

the east and Edirne to the west.

EARLY OTTOMAN

ARCHITECTURE

IN THE 14TH AND EARLY 15TH CENTURIES,THE OTTOMANS BECAME

POWERFUL IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN.THEIR ARCHITECTURAL

STYLE WAS INFLUENCED BY BYZANTINE MODELS.

Asuccession of victories againstthe weakened Byzantine

Empire allowed the Ottomans toexpand their dominion at a fastrate. In 1326, Orhan Gazi (reigned1324–62) conquered Bursa, a townnear the southern coast of the Seaof Marmara that became his capital.The crossing into Europe in 1349shifted the weight of conquest west,and Edirne was declared the newcapital after its capture by Murad I(reigned 1362–89) in 1365.

MERGING TRADITIONSBoth early Ottoman capitalsalongside Iznik, a town near Bursaconquered in 1331, preserve a large number of early Ottoman buildings. These modest in scale but ambitious structures can beviewed as Ottoman variations ontraditional themes. However, theirexperimental plans and novel ideas

cannot be explained without takinginto account the main outsideinfluence on the Ottomans, whichwas Byzantium.

While adopting the fiscal andadministrative structures of thefading empire for practical reasons,the Turkish sultans also tried toemulate the splendour and continue the legacy of an ancientMediterranean imperial tradition.They aspired to the conquest of Constantinople, the ultimateimperial Roman city of the East.Ottoman builders made use of the Byzantine repertoire of architectural forms and techniquesthat were drawn from buildingswithin their conquered lands.

DOMED SPACESThe predominance of domes foundwithin Ottoman architecture hasbeen attributed to both an Islamic

Right The impressive 15th-century

Uc Serefeli Mosque (1438–47) was

the first in Edirne to have a large

courtyard adjoining the prayer hall.

EARLY EXPERIMENTATIONThe Ulu Cami (Great Mosque) inBursa, built in 1396–1400 forSultan Bayezid I (reigned 1389–1402), is the most representativeexample of this multidomed type.Despite its significant ground area,the forest of 12 columns necessaryto support 20 domes marred thedesired feeling of expansiveness.The same problem had been faceda thousand years earlier by thebuilders of the Early Christianperiod, and several solutions hadbeen proposed, most popular beingthe domed cross-in-square plan, inwhich a central domed square spaceis surrounded by eight square spacesof equal or similar proportions.TheEski Cami Mosque in Edirne(1403–14) can be viewed either as aconcentrated version of the UluCami, with only nine domes

supported by four pillars, or as aversion of the nine-bay solution, aplan not unknown to Islamic archi-tecture but better developed withinthe Byzantine world.

Further proof of the Byzantineorigin of this idea is the late 14th-century Didymoteicho Mosque,in which the central bay is widerand crowned with a dome, whereas the surrounding eight bays aresmaller and covered with barrel orcross vaults. This arrangement

appears frequently in Byzantinebuildings that were scattered withinthe newly conquered Balkans, forexample at the 1028 church ofPanagia ‘ton Chalkeon’, in theadministrative and trade centre ofThessaloniki, conquered in 1430.

Given the conscious adoption ofa Byzantine prototype for mostOttoman mosques after the con-quest of Constantinople in 1453,it would be reasonable to assumethat a similar desire to include Byzantine, and ultimately Roman, imperial elements within the designs of early Ottoman architecture had encouraged theseexperimental plans, although theyproved to be short-lived.

Nevertheless, the century thatpredated the 1453 conquest hasoffered innovative buildings. Anelegant example is the Uc SerefeliMosque (1438–47) in Edirne, builtfor Murad II (reigned 1421–44,1445–51) and featuring a 24-m(79-ft) wide dome resting unusuallyon a hexagon instead of a square oroctagon. The side pillars preventunimpeded views of the four sidebays, but the effect is novel andchallenging, and is unique withinthe Ottoman architectural canon.

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C O N S TA N T I N O P L E ( I S TA N BU L )

Above A drawing of the Suleymaniye

Mosque shows the domed roof based on

the Hagia Sophia plan.The grand scale of

the complex symbolizes the sultan’s power.

Below The Hagia Sophia’s domed

structure inspired Ottoman architects.The

giant Arabic calligraphy panels were added

to the interior in the 16th century.

(1489–1588), the principal architectof the Ottoman Empire, for SultanSuleyman ‘the Magnificent’ (reigned1520–66).The Suleymaniye Mosque,the high point of classical Istanbularchitecture, bears a striking resem-blance to the Byzantine cathedral inboth proportions and ground plan,although the lofty arches opening tothe right and left toward the sidebays represent a step forward byalleviating the restricting effect ofthe church’s side walls.

BEYOND THE PROTOTYPEWhile little innovation can be seenin the floor plans of sultanicmosques because they adhere to a venerated prototype, the architectural designs of smallerbuildings are often more original.The graceful Sehzade Mosque,built by Sinan in 1543 tocommemorate the son of SuleymanI, was a symmetrical departure fromthe Hagia Sophia plan. Two lateralsemidomes balancing the ones on

and opposite the qibla side create astrong central focus complementingthe single large dome. The pillarscarrying the main arches are pushedtoward the outside walls to allowthe play of curved surfaces on thetop half of the building’s interior tocounterbalance the strong verticallines of the supports. By this stage,walls are simple screens bridgingthe gaps between load-bearingelements and they are profuselypierced with stained-glass windowsin symmetrical arrangements.

Buildings other than mosques,erected around the OttomanEmpire in great numbers, were builtwithin the traditions of earlierIslamic architecture. Surroundingmosques and supporting themfinancially were complexes of shopsand hammams (bathhouses), creatingincome to cover the running costsof mosques and charitable institu-tions complementing their socialrole, such as imarets (public kitchens)and madrasas (religious colleges).

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T H E OT TO M A N E M P I R E

Abov eT h e i n t e r i o r d e c o r a t i o n o f t h e

r e c o n s t r u c t e d Fa t i h M o s q u e f o l l o w s

t h e B a r o q u e s t y l e o f 1 8 t h - c e n t u r y

O t t o m a n a r c h i t e c t u r e .

LeftThis aerial view of the Sultan

Bayezid Mosque (1501–6) gives some

idea of its relatively small scale, compared

with the Suleymaniye complex.

CONSTANTINOPLE

(ISTANBUL)THE OTTOMANS GAINED A NEW PRESTIGIOUS CAPITAL WHEN THEY

TOOK CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1453. THE CITY ALSO PROVIDED THEIR

BUILDERS WITH THE PROTOTYPE FOR THEIR GREAT MOSQUES.

Istanbul, the Turkish version of theGreek words eis ten polin, or ‘to

the City’, became the official nameof the city on the Bosphorus onlyas late as 1930. Until that date, itwas still called Constantinople,‘the city of Constantine’, a namereflecting its Roman and Byzantineimperial past. The grandeur of thiscapital of three successive empiresinspired several sieges by Muslimrulers, but the prize of conquestwas reserved for Sultan Mehmet II(reigned 1444–46, 1451–81), whoconsequently assumed the epithetof Fatih, ‘the Conqueror.’

THE FATIH MOSQUEThe first mosque to be built in thesoon-to-be-regenerated capital stillbears the same name, Fatih Mosque(1462–70), and despite collapsingand being reconstructed in 1771, itretains its original plan. Like thepre-1453 mosques of Bursa, Edirne

and Didymoteicho, it has a largecentral domed roof and some lateralbays, but it also presents the firstoccurrence of a feature that laterwould develop into the maincharacteristic of classical Ottomanmosques: a large semidome thatsupports the main dome on theqibla side (toward the direction ofprayer) over a long and narrow bay,unlike the square side bays to theleft and right. Significantly, this bayis separated from the domed centralbay by an arch supported by pillarsthat recede to the sides, creating theillusion of a unified roof consistingof the central dome and thesemidome.

THE HAGIA SOPHIA PLANThis effect was undoubtedlyinspired by the patriarchal churchof Byzantine Constantinople and eventually mosque of the Ottomans,Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya),

a building laden with imperialconnotations. Built between 532and 537, it was an inventive andshort-lived answer to the problemof a large floor area sheltered by adomed roof. The ‘Hagia Sophiaplan’ was popular with Ottomanbuilders and characterized 16th-century mosque architecture.

The original ‘Hagia Sophia plan,’as in the 6th-century cathedral, wasfinished with a second semidomeopposite, creating an elongated oval shell. The complete version first appeared in the Sultan BayezidMosque in Istanbul, built forBayezid II (reigned 1481–1512)around the turn of the century, inwhich the central core (semidome-dome-semidome) was flanked tothe right and left by eight domesarranged over eight bays.

The most faithful Ottomanversion of the plan was erectedbetween 1550 and 1557 by Sinan

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T H E C L A S S I CA L E R A

Above A main dome on a cubed structure

forms the base of the Mihrimah Sultana

Mosque. It was the first time Sinan used

semidomes flanking a central dome.

Left Pillars arranged in an octagon

shape support the massive dome of the

Selimiye Mosque, creating a huge area

illuminated by natural daylight.

Above The impressive dome of the

Selimiye Mosque stands 42m (138ft)

tall.The slender towering minarets reach

a tapered point at about 71m (233ft).

builders. Mihrimah Sultana,daughter of Suleyman ‘theMagnificent’ and wife of RüstemPasha, erected a mosque near theEdirne Gate of Istanbul’s wallsbetween 1562 and 1565. Thechoice of architect was unsurpris-ing: Sinan’s dense fenestration ofthe elevated cube under the domedematerializes the Mihrimah SultanaMosque’s structure; he would fullydeploy this decorative device adecade later in Edirne’s SelimiyeMosque.The comparatively modestscale of non-sultanic buildings wasa testing ground for ideas that wereblended into an elegantly varied yethomogeneous body of work.

THE ARCHITECT SINANSinan was the most important mimar(architect) in Istanbul and his longcareer spanning the reigns of three sultans, from the early 16thcentury to his death in 1588, marks the classical period of Ottoman architecture.A cross between a civilengineer, an architect and a ministerof public works with a portfolio ofhundreds of monuments across theOttoman dominion, Sinan wasrevered even in his own lifetime.

His masterpiece is the light-filled, delicately detailed SelimiyeMosque, built in Edirne (1569–75)for Selim II (reigned 1566–74).With this mosque he claimed tohave surpassed Hagia Sophia inbuilding a larger dome. However,his real achievement is thedistribution of interior space underthe vast dome, which rests on eightarches supported alternately bysemidomes and window-piercedwalls. The arches spring fromcapital-free pillars that recedetoward the outside of the building, creating a huge unifiedspace unobstructed by structural elements. The multitude of glazedwindows admits abundant daylight,forming an open-air, etherealillusion. In the Selimiye Mosque,Ottoman architecture had trulysurpassed its prototype, pushing thecapacity of building materials andgeometry to their limits.

The architecture of the late 16thand 17th centuries added fewvariations to the themes alreadyintroduced by Sinan and hispredecessors, and there was adecline in the standards of both construction and decoration.

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T H E OT TO M A N E M P I R E

Abov eT h e f l o r a l p a t t e r n o n t h e t i l e s i n

t h e R u s t e m Pa s h a M o s q u e i n c l u d e s a n

i n n o va t i v e r e d c o l o u r.

Left Calligraphy and floral patterns are

among the design elements in the blue,

green, red and white tiles that adorn the

Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque.

THE CLASS ICAL ERA

CLAD WITH IZNIK TILES AND DRESSED STONE, AND EMBELLISHED

WITH STAINED GLASS AND FURNITURE, 16TH-CENTURY OTTOMAN

MOSQUES ARE AMONG THE GLORIES OF ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE.

The grandeur of the classicalOttoman mosques is not only

due to their vast size, ground planand height but also to their interiordecoration. The balance betweenlight and dark, straight and curvedlines, empty space and decorativeexcess reaches its pinnacle in theworks of the master builder Sinan.

INTERIOR DECORATIONThe striking colours of the tiles thatadorn the buildings, commissionedfrom workshops in Istanbul and the town of Iznik not far from the capital, have preserved thesplendour of decorative schemesfrom the 16th century.This is oftennot true of other decorativematerials: few stained-glass windowshave survived and the wall paintingshave often been renewed severaltimes since first executed. Contraryto current practice, it is possible thatthe polished marble floors were

uncovered in hot summer months,to reflect light streaming in fromthe windows. However, bitterIstanbul winters called for warmercoverings, and the few periodcarpets still extant testify to theopulent, colourful woven fields offlowers and elaborate geometryadded to the mosque interiors.

Sinan’s Rüstem Pasha Mosque(1561–63) in Istanbul, commis-sioned by the Grand Wazir and son-in-law of Suleyman ‘theMagnificent’, is an architecturallyunassuming edifice with an ornateinterior featuring a profusion oftiles arranged in panels on the wallsboth inside and under the frontporch. The splendour and expenseof the decorations enhanced thevisual impact of the building.

Even more impressive is the tilecladding of the Sokollu MehmetPasha Mosque (1571–72), again bySinan, for the successor of Rustem

Pasha. In this simple domed spacewith four semidomes over the sidebays, the stone surfaces of the wallsand bearing elements are onlyselectively embellished with tiles,custom-made to fit specific spaces.The beautiful effect achieved, despitethe unremarkable architecture musthave been worthy compensation forthe time and effort needed. The survival in more-or-less originalform of the stained-glass windowscompletes the image of a restrainedyet elegant interior.

BUILDING DONORSThe relation between the donorswho funded the building of both of these mosques and the sultan emphasizes the social and political dimension of such religousfoundations. The ruler’s family andhigh officials of the empire erectedextravagant public structures asstatus symbols advertising theirdonors’ munificence and power tothe capital’s citizens.Women of theimperial family were also great

223

Above The Circumcision Chamber was

clad with the finest tiles manufactured

during the peak of Iznik production.

Below The love of flowers is apparent in

the 18th-century Fruit Room, where

painted wooden panels of fruit and

flowers decorate the walls and ceiling.

222

AboveThe reception room is in the

sultan’s private quarters of the palace.

Left A dense array of buildings form the

Topkapi Palace, originally called the Yeni

Saray, or ‘New Palace’.The Tower of

Justice can be seen here (right).

TOPKAPI PALACE

THE LEGENDARY TOPKAPI PALACE PRESERVES MOST OF ITS ORIGINAL

PLANS, ALONG WITH EXQUISITE ARTEFACTS. ITS HISTORY EPITOMIZES

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, AN AMALGAM OF GRANDEUR AND TERROR.

The world-famous TopkapiPalace preserves most of its

original architectural layout, alongwith an extraordinary museumcollection formed from the originalOttoman imperial treasury.

The Topkapi (Cannon Gate)Palace was built between1459–1473. Intially the palace wasthe seat of adminitration only – theroyal family was housed in anotherpalace, known later as the EskiSaray or Old Palace, in the Beyazitarea of Istanbul.They moved to theTopkapi site after the harem wasbuilt in the late 16th century.

AN ORDERED UNIVERSEThe palace is organized around asequence of courtyards, withincreasingly restricted privilege ofaccess and high security. Thissequential layout articulated thestate hierarchies with great clarity.

Much more than the sultan’sresidence, the Topkapi Palace wasthe seat of government for theentire Ottoman Empire. It washome to hundreds of courtiers,

soldiers and slaves. The imperialcomplex included the Divan,wheregovernment ministers met, as wellas miltary barracks, workshops, theroyal mint, state treasury andenormous kitchens situated aroundbeautifully planted and well-maintained garden coutyards. Theharem was restricted to the royalfamily and their servants, andwithin these quarters were facilitiesto serve the residents’ needs.

Being an imperial residence forsome four consecutive centuries,the interiors of the palace wereregularaly updated and rearranged,to follow new changes in interiorfashions, or to renovate afteroccasional house fires.The splendidpalace rooms therefore show thetastes of different periods – from16th century Iznik tiled pavilions to18th century Baroque trompe l’oeil.

There was an exacting order thatpermeated everyday life within theenclosure. Specific groups wereadmitted at particular areas duringdetermined times to performprescribed duties. Some quarters

were altogether out-of-bounds,except to a few. Famously, the onlynon-eunuch adult male allowed inthe harem was the sultan himself.

HIERARCHICAL LAYOUTThe Gate of Majesty leads into thefirst court, where the Imperial Mintand the 8th-century church ofHagia Irene, used in Ottoman timesas a warehouse and armoury, stillstand. Upon arriving at the Gate of Salutation or Middle Gate,everyone but the sultan had todismount in order to proceed into the second court. The secondcourt was the main gathering placefor courtiers, the location of thegrandest audiences with the sultanand the point of access to variousareas of the palace – the chimneyedkitchens, rebuilt by Sinan after a firein 1574; the Outer Treasury; theDivan, seat of the governmentcouncil; the Tower of Justice andthe inner harem.

From here, through the Gate ofFelicity, or Gate of White Eunuchs,the few that were granted access bythe sultan could enter the thirdcourt, surrounded by the Chamberof Petitions, or Throne Room, the

Library of Ahmet III (reigned1703–30), the Mosque of theAghas, the Kiosk of the Conqueror(housing the Inner Treasury), theDormitory of the 39 Senior Pages(the sultan himself being the 40th‘page’) and the sultan’s apartments.

ROUTE TO THE HAREMThe sultan accessed the harem fromthe third court – a complex ofpalatial proportions. The individualapartments featured mosques,ancillary service rooms, hammams(bathhouses) and warehouses.

Finally, in the innermost fourthcourt, visitors can nowadays enjoythe views and lofty quarters oncereserved for the sultan, among themthe superbly decorated BaghdadKiosk and Circumcision Chamber,standing between decorative pools.The slopes leading down to the seaare still planted with landscapedgardens, and give a flavour of the

tranquil atmosphere surroundingthe palace. In 1853, the Ottomanimperial household moved out ofthe Topkapi Palace, to the decidedlymore modern Dolmabahçe Palaceon the shores of the Bosphorus.Following the creation of theRepublic of Turkey, both palacesbecame national museums.