Sokullu Mehmet Pasha was one of Sinan’s preeminent patrons. He had the same vision as his first master Sultan Suleyman, who had emphasized the creation of complexes along the main diagonal route of the Ottoman Empire, culminating in Mecca and Medina. Sokullu along with his wife Ismihan Sultan jointly commissioned one of Sinan’s most distinguished mosque complexes, located in the Kadirga neighborhood of Istanbul. Here is the sketch of the interior toward the qibla wall.
There are Iznik tiles on the minbar cap and the qibla wall with black stones inset above the mihrab’s muqarnas and the minbar canopy. Looking up, we saw the six pendentives provided an interesting structural feature. The unifying force of the central hexagon is accentuated by the arches, which are loaded to take the thrusts. Sinan finally resolved the conflict between the circular dome and the rectangular ground plan in mosques with hexagonal baldachins.
Post Comments
2 Comments
Pretty cool post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say
that I’ve really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. In any case
I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
Thank you Katy! I hope to go back to these places someday.