Building the Architectural Narrative of the Topkapı Kara Ahmed Pasha Mosque Complex in Early Republican Turkey

Bibliographic Data

ID6017374
AuthorsSerra Akboy-Ilk (0000-0002-1788-9884, Collin College, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume2
Issue1
Pages81-102
Publication date2020-12-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueYıllık: Annual of Istanbul studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2687-5012 • E-ISSN: 2687-5691
PublisherSuna ve İnan Kıraç Vakfı Kültür ve Sanat İşletmesi (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.53979/yillik.2020.5
OpenAlexW3113562417
LanguageEN
References cited6

The Kara Ahmed Pasha Mosque complex in Topkapı, Istanbul, a sixteenth-century monument, is oneof the beacons in the architectural historiography created during the early republican period in Turkey.Noted in Mimar Sinan’s autobiographies, the mosque became an academic subject of formalistmonographs and research. The early republicans’ formalist construct of the historic complex resonatedwith the theory of modern architecture. Function was not seen as an autonomous facility that had tobe connected with other contextual facets but as an internal force through which architectural formemerged. Hence, Sinan’s devised form for the mosque was merely conceived as the outcome of the chiefarchitect’s rational consideration of function and structure. In return, the formal appreciation of thehistoric compound devoted itself single-mindedly to the aesthetic properties of architecture and mutedcontextual analysis as a research inquiry. This essay provides a closer reading of the early republicanhistoriography on the Kara Ahmed Pasha Mosque complex to unveil the formal references that haveperpetuated the long-standing understanding of the historic complex

Ancient history · Art · Literature · Narrative · Pasha · Historical Turkish Studies · History · History and Cultural Heritage · Ottoman and Turkish Studies

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access