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The Art Corner (Architect)

Sinan (b. Anatolia, Turkey 1489; d. Istanbul, Turkey 1588)

Mimar Koca Sinan, the "Great Architect Sinan", was born of Greek Christian parents in Anatolia, Turkey in 1489. Drafted as a soldier into the Ottoman royal house in 1512, he quickly advanced from calvary officer to construction officer. As construction officer he built bridges and fortifications. In 1538 he was appointed Architect of the Abode of Felicity.

During his career Sinan built hundreds of buildings including mosques, palaces, harems, chapels, tombs, schools, almshouses, madrassahs, caravan serais, granaries, fountains, aqueducts and hospitals. Of this diverse group of works, his mosques have been most influential.

For his mosques, Sinan adopted the design of the Hagia Sophia to create a building in which the central dome would appear weightless and in which the interior surfaces would appear bathed in light. He used buttressing on the exterior of his buildings to open the interiors. He often designed his mosques as part of a complex comprising schools, baths, guesthouses and hospitals.

Generally considered the greatest of all Ottoman architects, Sinan's career spanned fifty years. His great mosques are the archetypal image of Turkish Ottoman architecture. Sinan died in Istanbul, Turkey in 1588.

Suyleman Mosque , at Istanbul, Turkey, 1551 to 1558.

The Selimiye , at Edirne, Turkey, begun 1569.


	Suleyman Mosque Architect Sinan Location Istanbul , Turkey Date 1551 to 1558 Building Type mosque , religious Construction System bearing masonry Climate temperate Context urban Style Italian Renaissance Revival Notes small domed chapel. Suleyman Mosque Commentary "Suleyman the magnificent ordered a mosque appropriate to his title to be built by the architect Sinan, whereupon the present mosque was begun on one of the hills dominating the Golden Horn." "The mosque, and its attendant structures, madrasa, arms—houses, infirmaries, caravansarais, a medical school, hamams, schools of Tradition, a hospital, cells and shops were begun in 1550 by the architect Sinan and completed in 1557." "Here Sinan demonstrated his transformation of the Hagia Sophia plan from which he had drawn his inspiration: his dome is buttressed by two half-domes and two typanum walls." "Sinan's solution of putting four minarets at the corners of his arcaded courtyard (inspired by the atrium) sets up a counterpoint between a solid volume on the mosque side and a 'negative' space on the courtyard side." Details Dome has a diameter of 26 meters (85 feet) and a height of 51.8 meters (170 feet).

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