The invisible dome and the unbuilt bridge

Contemporary fiction and the mythologies of Ottoman architecture

Bibliographic Data

ID12905226
AuthorsJay Prosser (University of Leeds, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume12
Issue5
Pages514-530
Publication date2019-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMemory Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1750-6980 • E-ISSN: 1750-6999
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1750698019870693
OpenAlexW2979935300
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited8

This essay investigates the representation of sixteenth-century architecture during the Ottoman Empire in Elif Shafak’s The Architect’s Apprentice (2014) and Mathias Enard’s Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants (2018). Working with Walter Benjamin’s concept of architecture as testimony to mythology, the essay classifies the novels as architecture-ologies which demythologise empire at a moment of literal construction. The essay argues that, via the symbols of dome and bridge, the novels intervene in contemporary Ottoman nostalgia, both by treating architecture as memorialising transcultural exchange, and by reconstructing memories of transcultural violence founding the architecture and the Ottoman Empire. Building on the dialogue between literature and architecture, particularly Henry James’ ‘house of fiction’, the essay reveals how the novels’ ekphrases – their trans-mediation of dome and bridge into different forms of historical fiction – put into narrative perspective the imperial conquests and transcultural violence supporting the architecture of Sinan and Michelangelo

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Bridge (graph theory · Dome (geology · Empire · Literature · Mediation · Mythology · Narrative · Representation (politics · Social science · Sociology · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · History · Law · Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior · Walter Benjamin Studies Compilation · Architecture

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