Sinan
Koca Mi‘mār Sinān Āġā (Ottoman Turkish: خوجه معمار سنان آغا) (April 15, 1489 - April 09, 1588) was the chief Ottoman architect and civil engineer for sultans Suleiman I, Selim II and Murad III. He was, during a period of fifty years, responsible for the construction or the supervision of every major building in the Ottoman Empire. More than 300 structures are credited to him, exclusive of his more modest projects.
His most famous work is the Suleiman Mosque in Istanbul, although her considered his masterpiece to be the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne. He had under him an extensive governmental department and trained many assistants who also distinguished themselves, including Sedefhar Mehmet Ağa, architect of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. Sinan is considered the greatest architect of the classical period, and is often compared to Michelangelo, his contemporary in the West.
Background
Sinan was born a Christian in Anatolia in a small town called Ağırnas near the city of Kayseri, either of Greek or Armenian origin. His father's name is variously recorded as Abdülmenan, Abdullah, and Hristo (Hristos). In 1512, he was conscripted into Ottoman service and went to Istanbul to join the Janissary Corps, where he converted to Islam. He initially learned carpentry and mathematics and showed soon became the assistant of leading architects.
During this time, he was also trained as a cadet, finally being admitted to the brotherhood of Janissaries after six years. After participating in several important battles, he was promoted to captain of the Royal Guard and then given command of the Infantry Cadet Corps. He was later stationed in Austria, where he commanded the 62nd Orta of the Rifle Corps. He became a master of archery, while at the same time, as an architect, used his knowledge of architecture to learn the weak points of enemy structures. In 1535 he participated in the Baghdad campaign as a commanding officer of the Royal Guard. In 1537 he went on expedition to Corfu and Apulia and finally to Moldavia.
During all these campaigns he had proved to be a trained engineer and an able architect. When the Ottoman army captured Cairo, Sinan was promoted to chief architect of the city. During the campaign in the East, he assisted in the building of defenses and bridges, such as a bridge across the Danube. He also converted churches into mosques. During the Persian campaign in 1535 he built ships to enable the army and the artillery to cross Lake Van. For this he was given the noble title of Haseki'i, Sergeant-at-Arms in the body guard of the Sultan, a rank equivalent to that of the Janissary Ağa.
When Çelebi Lütfi Pasha, a previous commander of Sinan, became Grand Vizier in 1539, he appointed Sinan Architect of Istanbul. It was his task to supervise construction and the maintain the flow of supplies within the entire Ottoman empire. He was also responsible for the design and construction of public works, such as roads, waterworks and bridges. Through the years, he transformed his office into that of Architect of the Empire, an elaborate government department, with greater powers even than his supervising minister. He became the head of a entire Corps of Court Architects, training a team of assistants, deputies, and pupils.
Work
Early period
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His training as an army engineer gave Sinan a empirical approach to architecture rather than a theoretical one. During his military career, he had the opportunity to study the architectural monuments in the conquered cities of Europe and the Middle East. Using this knowledge and his innate talents, he eventually transformed established architectural practices, amplifying and transforming the traditions by adding innovations, trying to approach perfection.
During these years Sinan continued the traditional pragmatic pattern of Ottoman architecture. Gradually, howevever, he began exploring other possibilities. His first attempt to build an important monument was the Hüsrev Pasha mosque and its double medresse in Aleppo, Syria. It was built in the winter of 1536-1537 between two army campaigns for his commander-in-chief. Its hasty construction is demonstrated in the coarseness of execution and the crude decoration.
His first major commission as the royal architect was the construction of a modest Haseki Hürrem complex for Roxelana (Hürem Sultan), the wife of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. Here, Sinan had to follow the plans drawn by his predecessors. He retained the traditional arrangement of the available space without any innovations. Nevertheless the structure was already better built and more elegant than the Aleppo mosque.
In 1541, he started the construction of the mausoleum (türbe) of the Grand Admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa. It stands on the shore of Beşiktaş on the European part of Istanbul, at the site where the admiral's fleet used to assemble. Oddly enough, the admiral is not buried there, and the mausoleum has been severely neglected.
Mihrimah Sultana, the only daughter of Süleyman, who became the wife of the Grand Vizier Rüstem Pasha, gave Sinan the commission to build a mosque with medrese (college), an imaret (soup kitchen) and a sibyan mekteb (Qur'an school) in Üsküdar. The imaret no longer exists. This Iskele Mosque (or Jetty mosque) already shows several hallmarks of Sinan's mature style : a spacious, high-vaulted basement, slender minarets, single-domed baldacchino, flanked by three semi-domes ending in three exedrae and a broad double portico. The construction was finished in 1548. The construction of a double portico was not a first in Ottoman architecture, but it set a trend for country mosques and mosques of viziers in particular. Rüstem Pasha and Mihrimah required them later in their three mosques in Istanbul and in the Rüstem Pasha Mosque in Tekirdağ. The inner portico traditionally have stalactite capitals while the outer portico has capitals with chevron patterns (baklava).
When sultan Süleyman the Magnificent returned from another Balkan campaign, he received news that his heir to the throne Ṣehzade Mehmet had died at the age of twenty-two. In November 1543, not long after Sinan had started the construction of the Iskele Mosque, the sultan ordered Sinan to build a new major mosque with an adjoining complex in memory of his favourite son. This Şehzade Mosque would become larger and more ambitious than his previous ones. Architectural historians consider this mosque as Sinan's first masterpiece. Obsessed by the concept of a large central dome, Sinan turned to the plans of mosques such as the Fatih Pasha Mosque in Diyarbakır or the Piri Pasha Mosque in Hasköy. He must have visited both mosques during his Persian campaign. Sinan built a mosque with a central dome, this time with four equal half-domes. This superstructure is supported by four massive, but still elegant free-standing, octagonal, fluted piers and four piers incorporated in each lateral wall. In the corners, above roof level, four turrets serve as stabilizing anchors. This coherent concept already is markedly different from the additive plans of traditional Ottoman architecture. Sedefhar Mehmet Ağa would later copy the concept of fluted piers in his Sultan Ahmed Mosque in an attempt to lighten their appearance. Sinan, however, rejected this solution in his next mosques.
Experimental stage
By 1550 Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent was at the height of his powers. He gave the order to Sinan to build a mosque, the Süleymaniye, surrounded by a külliye (complex) consisting of four colleges, a soup kitchen, hospital, asylum, bath, caravanserai, and a hospice for travelers. Sinan, now heading a formidable department with a great number of assistants, finished this formidable task in seven years. Through this monumental achievement, Sinan emerged from the anonymity of his predecessors. In this work, Sinan is thought to have been influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance architect Leone Battista Alberti and other Western architects, who sought to constrcut the ideal church, reflecting the perfection of geometry in architecture. Contrary to his Western counterparts, however Sinan emphasized simplification more than in enrichment. He tried to achieve the largest possible volume under a single central dome, believing that this structure, based on the circle, is the perfect geometrical figure, representing, in an abstract way, the perfection of God.
While he was fully occupied with the construction of the Süleymaniye, Sinan planned and supervised many other constructions. In 1550 he built a large inn (han) in the Galata district of Istanbul. He completed another mosque and a funeral monument for the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha at Silivrikapı (Istanbul) in 1551. Between 1553 and 1555, Sinan built a mosque at Beşiktaş for Grand Admiral Sinan Pasha which was a smaller version of the Üç Ṣerefeli Mosque at Edirne, copying the old form while attempting innovative solutions to weaknesses in its construction. In 1554 Sinan used this form to create a mosque for the next grand vizier, Kara Ahmed Pasha, in Istanbul, his first hexagonal mosque. By applying this geometric form, Sinan could reduce the side domes to half-domes and set them in the corners at an angle of 45 degrees. He used the same principle later in mosques such as the Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque at Kadırga and the Atık Valide Mosque at Űskűdar.
In 1556 Sinan built the Haseki Hürrem Hamam, replacing the antique Baths of Zeuxippus still standing close to the Hagia Sophia. This would become one of the most beautiful hamams he ever constructed. In 1559 he built the Cafer Ağa madrasah below the forecourt of the Hagia Sophia. In the same year he began the construction of a small mosque for İskender Pasha at Kanlıka, beside the Bosporus, one of the many such minor commissions which his office received over the years.
In 1561, Sinan began the construction of the Rüstem Pasha Mosque, situated just below the Süleymaniye. This time the central form is octagonal, modeled on the monastery church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, with four small semi-domes set in the corners. In the same year, Sinan built a funeral monument for Rüstem Pasha in the garden of the Şehzade Mosque, decorated with the finest tiles from the city of Iznik. For Rüstem Pasha's widow, he built the Mihrimah Sulatana Mosque at Edirne Gate, on the highest of the seven hills of Istanbul. He constructed this mosque on a vaulted platform, accentuating its hilltop site.[1] Concerned to achieve a sense of grandeur, he built this mosque with one of his most imaginative designs, using new support systems and lateral spaces to increase the area available for windows. It features a central dome 37 meters high and 20 meters wide on a square base with two lateral galleries, each with three cupolas. At each corner of the square stands a gigantic pier connected with immense arches, each with 15 large square windows and four circular ones, flooding the interior with light. This evolutionary building was as close to the style of Gothic architecture style as Ottoman structure would allow.
Between 1560 and 1566 Sinan designed and at least partly supervised the building a mosque in Istanbul for Zal Mahmut Pasha on a hillside beyond Ayvansaray. On the outside, the mosque rises high, with its east wall pierced by four tiers of windows. Inside, there are three broad galleries making the interior look compact. The heaviness of this structure makes the dome look unexpectedly lofty.
Master stage
In this late stage of his life, Sinan sought to create magnificent building of unified form and sublimely elegant interiors. To achieve this, he eliminated all the unnecessary subsidiary spaces beyond the supporting piers of the central dome. This can be seen in the Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Mosque in Istanbul (1571-1572) and in the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne. In other buildings of his final period, Sinan experimented with spatial and mural treatments that were new in classical Ottoman architecture.
According to his autobiography, he considered his masterpiece to be Selimiye Mosque. Breaking free of the handicaps of traditional Ottoman architecture, this mosque marks the climax of Sinan's work and is considered the apex of classical Ottoman architecture. One of his motivations in this work was to create a dome even larger than that of the Hagia Sophia. Sinan was more than 80 years old when the building was finished. In this mosque he finally realized his aim of creating the optimum, completely unified, domed interior. This time he used an octagonal central dome 31.28 m wide and 42 m high, supported by eight elephantine piers of marble and granite.
These supports lack any capitals leads to the optical effect that the arches grow integrally out of the piers. He increased the three-dimensional effect by placing the lateral galleries far away. Windows flood the interior with light. Buttressing semi-domes are set in the four corners of the square under the dome. The weight and the internal tensions are thus hidden, producing an airy and elegant effect rarely seen under a central dome. Four minarets—each 83 m high, the tallest in the Muslim world—are placed at the corners of the prayer hall, accentuating the vertical posture of this mosque that already dominates the city.
He also designed the Taqiyya al-Sulaimaniyya khan and mosque in Damascus, still considered one of the city's most notable monuments, as well as the Banya Bashi Mosque in Sofia, Bulgaria, currently the only functioning mosque in the city. He has also built Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad across the Drina River in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina which is now UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Legacy
Sinan's genius lies in the organization of space and the resolution of the tensions created by his revolutionary designs. He was also an innovator in the use of decoration and motifs, merging them into the architectural forms as a whole. He accentuated the center underneath the central dome by flooding it with light from the many windows. He also incorporated his mosques in an efficient way into a complex, making them more than simply monuments to God's glory but also serving the needs of the community as academies, community centers, hospitals, inns, and charitable institutions.
When Sinan died, the classical Ottoman architecture had reached its climax. No successor was gifted enough to better the designs. Indeed, if he had one weakness, it is that his students retreated to earlier models.
Constructions
During his tenure during 50 years of the post of imperial architect, Sinan is said to have designed, constructed, or supervised 476 buildings, 196 of which still survive. This include:
- 94 large mosques (camii),
- 57 colleges,
- 52 smaller mosques (mescit),
- 48 bath-houses (hamam).
- 35 palaces (saray),
- 22 mausoleums (türbe),
- 20 caravanserai (kervansaray; han),
- 17 public kitchens (imaret),
- 8 bridges,
- 8 store houses or granaries
- 7 Koranic schools (medrese),
- 6 aqueducts,
- 3 hospitals (darüşşifa)
Some of his works:
- Azapkapi Sokullu Mosque in Istanbul
- Caferağa Medresseh
- Selimiye Mosque in Edirne
- Süleymaniye Complex
- Kilic Ali Pasha Complex
- Molla Celebi Complex
- Haseki Baths
- Piyale Pasha Mosque
- Sehzade Mosque
- Mihrimah Sultan Complex in Edirnekapi
- Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad
- Nisanci Mehmed Pasha Mosque
- Rüstem Pasha Mosque
- Zal Mahmud pasha Mosque
- Kadirga Sokullu Mosque
- Koursoum Mosque or Osman Shah Mosque in Trikala
- Al-Takiya Al-Suleimaniya in Damascus
- Yavuz Sultan Selim Madras
- Mimar Sinan Bridge in Büyükçekmece
See also
- Atik Sinan
Notes
- ↑ There is some speculation concerning the dates of this mosque. It is now generally accepted to be between 1562 and 1565.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
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- Turner, J. Grove Dictionary of Art, Oxford University Press, USA; New Ed edition (January 2, 1996); ISBN 0-19-517068-7
- Guler, Ara; Burelli, Augusto Romano; Freely, John (1992). Sinan: Architect of Suleyman the Magnificent and the Ottoman Golden Age. WW Norton&Co. Inc. ISBN 0-500-34120-6
- Çelebi, Sai Mustafa (2004). Book Of Buildings : Tezkiretü'l Bünyan Ve Tezkiretü'l-Ebniye (Memoirs Of Sinan The Architect). Koç Kültür Sanat Tanıtım ISBN 975-296-017-0
- Aptullah Kuran, Ara Güler (Illustrator), Mustafa Niksarli (Illustrator): Mimar Sinan, Istanbul 1986. ISBN 3-89122-007-3 (in Turkish)
- Aptullah Kuran, Sinan: The grand old master of Ottoman architecture, Ada Press Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0-941469-00-X (in English)
- Gülru Necipoglu, The Age of Sinan, 2005
- J.M. Rogers. Sinan 2005. I.B. Tauris ISBN 1-84511-096-X.
- Egli Ernst, Sinan, der Baumeister osmanischer Glanzzeit, Erlenbach-Zürich, Verlag für Architektur, 1954; ISBN 1 904772 26 9 (in German)
- Van Vynckt (ed.), Randall J.. International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture - Tome 1 : Architects; article on Sinan written by David G. Wilkins. Detroit, London, Washington: St. James Press. ISBN 1-55862-089-3
- Arthur Stratton (1972). Sinan ISBN 0333029011. Macmillan Publishers.
External links
- Pictures of the city of Edirne, with many pictures of the Selimiye Mosque
- A map and a short guide for Sinan's works in Istanbul (Turkish)
- Photos of some Sinan mosques in Istanbul
- Map of some Sinan mosques in Istanbul
- Master Builder of the 16th Century Ottoman Mosque
- Respect to Sinan (tribute site)
- Mimar Sinan Bridge in Büyükçekmece
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