The Sinan Qua Non of Architecture

It seems a bit silly to come all the way to Istanbul and not see the most-visited site, so that's how we started our penultimate day in Istanbul.  We walked over to the Hagia Sofia just as it opened, to appreciate the building that we have admired so many times on our daily strolls.  

The outside of the building is an interesting mix of colors and construction materials, which was quickly explained as we started to read about its history.  This massive structure is actually the third building to sit on this site.  The original was built by Constatitius, but it kept getting burned down in riots.  It seems that the bigger the building, the bigger the riots that it attracted.  After two riots, they apparently learned their lesson and built it entirely out of stone.  About a thousand years later, when the Ottoman empire took over, the Hagia Sofia was converted to a mosque and some repairs were made by the one and only Sinan the architect (of Suleiman Mosque fame) that have enabled it to stand to this day.  The Hagia Sofia remained a mosque until the 1920s, when the one and only Ataturk declared it a museum. Given that there is a major mosque atop each of the seven hills in the city and many others nestled within the side streets, I think that the local residents had sufficient other options.

The Hagia is, like other mosques we visited, a beautiful open space with a giant dome in the middle surrounded by a series of smaller domes.  When the Ottomans seized the city, the Byzantine mosaics were covered over with paint to remove all the depictions of people, angels, and seraphim and enormous discs with Islamic verses were posted at the corners.  Since the Hagia Sofia was converted into a museum, though, quite a few of these mosaics have been uncovered.  They're beautiful, and often the design is similar to that which was painted over it (albeit without the human figures).  The mosaics also include possibly the best medieval depictions of Christian figures I have ever seen.  Take a look at Jesus.  He actually looks like a real, expressive human being.

One of the other parts of the Hagia Sofia that I appreciated was how many types of marble had been incorporated to create a beautiful pattern of colors and textures on the walls.

Marble was brought from hundreds of miles away, from all the surrounding kingdoms in the empire, to construct this enormous church.  They have records of where each color and pattern of marble originated, making this church a testament not only to 4th century architectural mastery but also the increasingly global world two millenia ago.

Other highlights included the omphalion where eastern Roman emperors were crowned, handmade sets of portable stairs that were used to reach the high spaces, the 56.6 m high and 32.6 m wide megadome, and this giant Hellenistic marble jar that was used to distribute sherbet on festival days.  I can totally get behind these quantities of sherbet.

As we walked to our next destination, we fended off eager salesmen of bosphorus cruises.  One of the funnier ones shouted, "It is very romantic!  Like the Titanic.... But without the sinking!"  The heckling definitely gets old, but at least they're funny about it.

Our next stop was the archaeology museum, which consists of three buildings on a single property.  Sadly, about half of the main building was closed for renovation, but we were still able to appreciate the dozens of sculptures arranged in their garden, the numerous sarcophagi (they apparently have an excellent collection), and the thousands of artifacts recovered from nearby archeological sites.  

While Josh and I have been very disappointed at the lack of information available on individual pieces at all of the museums (usually, just a name such as "clay bowl fragment" is offered), this museum did have a wonderful, concise history of the early epics, the depictions of the Trojan War, and how that information has been passed down written at the beginning of the first exhibit.  I was blown away by the influence of Homer.  His history of the Trojan War has been used as justification for the Crusades, a rationale for making Troy a tax-free province, an impetus for rulers to trace their lineage back to Trojan leadership... apparently when the Byzantines were casting about for a capital, they considered Troy before settling on what became Constantinople.  Pretty incredible.  The other striking thing about that exhibit, as we were wandering around looking at Paleolithic art, was how early on people tried to make things beautiful.  They were hunter-gatherers in a period of subsistance living, yet they painted beautiful designs on their pots and bowls.  I guess functionality fails to please without a little bit of beauty.

Our final stop for the day was the Blue Mosque.  We had heard from several friends that this mosque was "overrated" and "overdecorated", but we both loved it.  True, every inch of it is decorated with patterns, colors, and tiles, but it is gorgeous.  The blues are so calming and the interwoven colors and textures of the decorations are seamless.  And look at those windows.

And thus ended another great day.

Spotted #1: We had spotted quite a few dogs with tags in their ears and were curious what that meant.  We learned that dogs are tagged after being vaccinated.  This is how the city of Istanbul is dealing with its enormous stray cat/dog problem.

Spotted #2: It has been interesting to note that at almost all major sites and museums, two dating systems are used: the Christian and Islamic calendars.  I realized how much I take the Christian calendar (i.e. BC and AD) for granted.  Occasionally, only the Christian calendar date is used, but the majority of the sites provide both.

Spotted #3: You can buy a Topkapi Dagger replica at the Hagia Sofia.  It's 10,000TL (about $4,000).  Palace not included.

(Also, how great is Josh's expression in that photo?)