Classical Ottoman architecture is a period in Ottoman architecture generally including the 16th and 17th centuries. The period is most strongly associated with the works of Mimar Sinan, who was Chief Court Architect under three sultans between 1538 and 1588. The start of the period also coincided with the long reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, which is recognized as the apogee of Ottoman political and cultural development, with extensive patronage in art and architecture by the sultan, his family, and his high-ranking officials.
Ottoman architecture at this time was strongly influenced by Byzantine architecture, particularly the Hagia Sophia, and blended it with other influences to suit Ottoman needs. Architects typically experimented with different combinations of conventional elements including domes, semi-domes, and arcaded porticos. Successful architects such as Sinan demonstrated their skill through their meticulous attempts to solve problems of space, proportion, and harmony. Sinan's most important works include the Şehzade Mosque, Süleymaniye Mosque, and Selimiye Mosque.
After Sinan's death, the classical style became less innovative and more repetitive. The 17th century still produced major works such as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, but the social and political changes of the Tulip Period eventually led to a shift towards Ottoman Baroque architecture. The classical Ottoman style was still deemed appropriate for some later construction projects, such as the reconstruction of the Fatih Mosque in the 18th century, and it has also been imitated more recently in the construction of mosques in modern Turkey.
Background
Major developments in early Ottoman architecture
Early Ottoman mosques up to the early and mid 15th century were generally of three types: the single-domed mosque, the "T-plan" mosque, and the multi-domed mosque. A major step towards the style of later Ottoman mosques was the Üç Şerefeli Mosque in Edirne, begun by Murad II in 1437 and finished in 1447. The overall form of the mosque, with its central-dome prayer hall, arcaded courtyard with fountain, four minarets, and tall entrance portals, foreshadowed the features of later Ottoman mosque architecture. Scholar Doğan Kuban describes it as the "last stage in Early Ottoman architecture", while the central dome plan and the "modular" character of its design signaled the direction of future Ottoman architecture in Istanbul. He also notes that the mosque, which is built in cut stone and makes use of alternating bands of coloured stone for some of its decorative effects, marks the decline of the use of alternating brick and stone construction seen in earlier Ottoman buildings.
Ottoman sultans traditionally built monumental mosques and religious complexes in their name. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II built the Fatih Mosque between 1463 and 1470, which is dedicated to his name. It was part of a very large külliye (religious and charitable complex) which also included a tabhane (guesthouse for travelers), an imaret (soup kitchen), a darüşşifa (hospital), a caravanserai (hostel for traveling merchants), a mektep (primary school), a library, a hammam (bathhouse), shops, a cemetery with the founder's mausoleum, and eight madrasas along with their annexes. Unfortunately, much of the mosque was destroyed by an earthquake in 1766, causing it to be largely rebuilt by Mustafa III in a significantly altered form shortly afterwards. The original design of the mosque, drawing on the ideas established by the earlier Üç Şerefeli Mosque, consisted of a rectangular courtyard with a surrounding gallery leading to a domed prayer hall. The prayer hall consisted of a large central dome with a semi-dome behind it and flanked by a row of three smaller domes on either side. The design reflected the influence of the Byzantine-built Hagia Sophia combined with the Ottoman imperial mosque tradition that had evolved in Bursa and Edirne.
The Bayezid II Mosque in Istanbul, built between 1500 and 1505, was the culmination of the period of architectural exploration in the late 15th century and was the last step towards the classical Ottoman style. The deliberate arrangement of established Ottoman architectural elements into a strongly symmetrical design is one aspect which denotes this evolution. The mosque was again part of a larger külliye complex with multiple buildings serving different functions. The mosque structure consists of a square courtyard leading to a square prayer hall. The prayer hall is roofed by a central dome with two semi-domes in front and behind it, while two side aisles are each covered by four smaller domes. Compared to earlier mosques, this resulted in a much more sophisticated "cascade of domes" effect for the building's exterior profile, likely reflecting influences from the Hagia Sophia and the Fatih Mosque.
Context of the Ottoman classical period The classical period of Ottoman architecture was to a large degree a development of the prior approaches as they evolved over the 15th and early 16th centuries and the start of the classical period is strongly associated with the works of Mimar Sinan. During this period the bureaucracy of the Ottoman state, whose foundations were laid in Istanbul by Mehmet II, became increasingly elaborate and the profession of the architect became further institutionalized. The Ottoman administration included a "palace department of buildings" or "corps of royal architects" (khāṣṣa mi'mārları). The first documented references to this department date from the reign of Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512). It grew from 13 architects in 1525 to 39 architects by 1604. Many of the architects and bureaucrats were recruited from the Christian population of the empire through the devshirme system.
The long reign of Suleiman the Magnificent is also recognized as the apogee of Ottoman political and cultural development, with extensive patronage in art and architecture by the sultan, his family, and his high-ranking officials. The master architect of the classical period, Mimar Sinan, served as the chief court architect (mimarbaşi) from 1538 until his death in 1588. Sinan credited himself with the design of over 300 buildings, though another estimate of his works puts it at nearly 500. He is credited with designing buildings as far as Buda (present-day Budapest) and Mecca. Sinan was probably not present to directly supervise projects far from the capital, so in these cases his designs were most likely executed by his assistants or by local architects. This also demonstrates the ability of the central Ottoman state to commission and plan building projects across its vast territory at the time, a practice that also helped to establish Ottoman sovereignty in these provinces through the construction of monuments in a visibly Ottoman style. Architects in the capital were able to draw plans and delegate them to other architects who carried them out locally, while the imperial administration developed a set of standards for planning and construction and was able to coordinate the procurement and transportation of the necessary materials.
General characteristics
In this period, Ottoman architecture, especially under the work and influence of Sinan, saw a new unification and harmonization of the various architectural elements and influences that Ottoman architecture had previously absorbed but which had not yet been harmonized into a collective whole. Taking heavily from the Byzantine tradition, and in particular the influence of the Hagia Sophia, classical Ottoman architecture was, as before, ultimately a syncretic blend of numerous influences and adaptations for Ottoman needs.
Ottoman architecture used a limited set of general forms – such as domes, semi-domes, and arcaded porticos – which were repeated in every structure and could be combined in a limited number of ways. Doğan Kuban describes this as the "modular" aspect of Ottoman architecture. The ingenuity of successful architects such as Sinan lay in the careful and calculated attempts to solve problems of space, proportion, and harmony. Sinan himself continuously experimented with different spatial arrangements for his buildings throughout his career, seldom using the same design more than once. After Sinan, his less talented successors showed less creativity and the later classical style became stale and repetitive by comparison with earlier periods.
In what may be the most emblematic of the structures of this period, the classical mosques designed by Sinan and those after him used a dome-based structure, similar to that of Hagia Sophia, but among other things changed the proportions, opened the interior of the structure and freed it from the colonnades and other structural elements that broke up the inside of Hagia Sophia and other Byzantine churches, and added more light, with greater emphasis on the use of lighting and shadow with a huge volume of windows. These developments were themselves both a mixture of influence from Hagia Sophia and similar Byzantine structures, as well as the result of the developments of Ottoman architecture from 1400 on, which, in the words of Godfrey Goodwin, had already "achieved that poetic interplay of shaded and sunlit interiors which pleased Le Corbusier." The legacy of the Hagia Sophia and early Ottoman mosques is also reflected by the continuing use of semi-domes alongside the main dome and the use of pendentives to accomplish the transition from the dome to the square or polygonal space below.
In the Ottoman style canonized by Sinan, the design of monumental Ottoman buildings was conceptualized with the central dome above as its starting point, rather than the floor plan being conceived first and the roofing system after. In particular, the core of the design was the domed baldaquin, which is to say the dome and its basic structural support system: a set of pillars or buttresses in a square, hexagonal, or octagonal configuration – involving four, six, or eight pillars, respectively.
Whereas early Ottoman buildings relied on brick and rubble masonry for construction, in the 16th century it was standard for walls to be made with a rubble core and faced with cut stone, particularly cut limestone. Some buildings were still constructed with the older technique of alternating layers of brick with layers of stone, but this was more common for auxiliary structures rather than major monuments. Domes and vaults continued to be built with brick, which was lighter than stone and thus more suited for this purpose, and then typically covered with lead on the outside. By the 16th century, the empire contained many old disused Byzantine churches and it was common practice to reuse marble columns taken from these sites, which provided much of the marble for new constructions in this period. Fresh marble was also quarried around Marmara. Occasionally, when there was a shortage of marble or in situations where marble was risky for certain structural elements, "fake marble" was used: usually brick covered with plaster painted to look like marble. The classical period is also notable for the development of Iznik tile decoration in Ottoman monuments, with the artistic peak of this medium beginning in the second half of the 16th century.
Architecture under Sinan
Earliest buildings of Suleiman's reign