Historical Factors and Their Impact on The Formation of Architect Sinan's Mosques

Abstract

Abstract

The history of architecture has played an influential role when architect Sinan decided to make the Ottoman architecture one of the top schools in the history of world architecture in general and Islamic architecture in particular. The importance of studying the architecture of architect Sinan, from a historical perspective, stems from the complexity of the historical background to his buildings, and also from the diversity of the historical factors that contributed to the drafting of the form and dimensions of the exterior form and the interior space in Ottoman mosque architecture. The geographical location of the city of Istanbul, on the borders of the two continents, Asia and Europe, has a historical Byzantium depth represented by Hagia Sophia and many other historical buildings. On the other hand, the Ottoman architectural school must be understood as a continuation of the Islamic architecture that was represented in many large Islamic capitals around the world, which contain a lot of landmarks in the history of world architecture. And also it should be highlighted that the zeitgeist imposed competition with the Western countries that have architectural products able to cope with Ottoman architecture in its golden age. In fact there was a major role of the architecture and architects of Rome in the Renaissance in igniting competition with architect Sinan, which  made him give all of his creativity and ability to perform.

In this research, a set of points are proposed to explain how architect Sinan took advantage of historical factors and old models of architecture to write his 16th century Ottoman architectural novel. It may also give researchers and present day architects knowledge in order to develop intellectual skills in dealing with contemporary architecture, in addition to contributing to the possibility of having a vision of what should be the future of architecture, especially mosque architecture.