MİHRİŞAH VALİDE SULTAN COMPLEX

Eyüp - İstanbul - Turkey

GPS : 41°02'54.5"N 28°56'03.5"E / 41.048472, 28.934306



PHOTOGRAPHS ALBUM

This baroque complex, which was built for Mihrişah Sultan, wife of Sultan Mustafa III and mother of Sultan Selim III, near to Bostan Pier of Eyüp in between 1792 - 1795, is quite broad. The complex was built by Arif Ağa the chief architect in between 1792 - 1794.

The inscription on the baroque - rococo style fountain, which dates to 1795 and is in the southeast direction of the complex, belongs to Galip who was the sheikh of the Galata Mevlevihane. The tomb, which was built in 1792 for Mihrişah Sultan who died in 1805, is a quite beautiful example of the Ottoman baroque style. The names of the Prophet Muhammad and four caliphs were inscribed on the roundels between the window arches.

Leaving Eyüp Mosque by the north gate, one finds oneself in a narrow street that leads down to the Golden Horn. Most of the left side of this street is occupied by the enormous külliye built in 1794 by Mihrişah Valide Sultan. This is one of the largest and most elaborate of all the baroque complexes and includes the türbe of the foundress together with a mektep, an imaret, and a splendid sebil and çeşmes.

The türbe is round, but the façade undulates turning it into a polygon, the various faces being separated by slender columns of red or dark grey marble; in general it recalls the türbe of Nakşidil at Fatih, though it is not quite so flamboyant.

The entrance is in a little courtyard filled with tombstones and trees, along one side of which runs the columned portico of the mektep or primary school.

Farther along the street another monumental gateway leads into the vast courtyard with more and tombstones and surrounded on three sides by the porticoes of the huge imaret or public kitchen. This is one of the very few imarets in Istanbul which still fulfil their function as food kitchens for the poor of the district; some 500 people are served daily at 11 o’clock with food to take away.

In leaving you should notice the magnificent sebil at the end of the garden wall on the street side. Continuing towards the water, one passes on the right the türbe and on the left the library of Hüsrev Paşa, dated 1839 and both in heavy Empire style; but the domes of the library reading-rooms contain a good example of that horrendous Italianate comic opera painted decoration of garlands, draperies and columns, which is so distressing when it occurs in classical buildings but is quite appropriate here.

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DAMAT İBRAHİM PASHA COMPLEX

Şehzadebaşı, Fatih - İstanbul - Turkey

GPS : 41°00'23.4"N 28°58'28.6"E / 41.006500, 28.974611



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This complex was built in 1720 by the order of Damad Ibrahim Pasha (1718-1730) who held the office of Grand Vizier three times of Ottoman Empire. It is located at the corner of Dede Efendi Street and Şehzadepaşa Street. The complex was built by Chief Architect Kayserili Mehmet Ağa for Nevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha in the 1720s.

It is one of the most important works of Damat Ibrahim Pasha Complex. If we consider water-tank with a fountain as the centre of Complex, Madrasa covers a half of the complex. All the other parts of complex are on the other side of water-tank. Damad Ibrahim Pasha Complex was built with the aim of being used as Darul Hadis Madrassa and library. Today madrasa is used as cultural centre by East Turkistan Foundation.

Built between 1726-1727 under Damat İbrahim Pasha's direction, it consists of a mosque, madrasah, sabil, cemetary, library, sibyan mektebi (junior school), imaret (kitchens for madrasah students) and Turkish bath.

Kurşunlu Mosque is known as Damat İbrahim Pasha Mosque. However because its domes are made out of lead, locally it is called Kurşunlu Mosque (Leaded Mosque). It was built by head architect Mehmet Ağa and his foreman Serkis and located in a courtyard surrounded by high and thick walls. The courtyard has three entrances.

The west side door which is also used today has double arches. The inner arch is decorated with verses from the era's famous poet Nedim.The main area of the mosque is reached through a wooden door with two arches. The lower arch is decorated with verses from Seyyid Vehbi. This square shaped main area is covered with a dome.

The exterior of the building has a simple architecture, however the interior has been adorned with stencilled motifs from the Lale Era. The minaret on the north side of the mosque is built in the baroque style and embellished with Acanthus leaves. In the years when the schoolroom of the complex was transformed into a mosque, the minaret with a sherefe (minaret balcony) was added to the present complex. This structure is the only remaining part of the complex that has survived until today.

The Ablutions Fountain stands in the middle of the courtyard, on top of 8 marble pillars and covered with lead. The body of the water tank has 12 corners. The taps are separated by small marble pillars. The gutter of the wooden interior domes is decorated with geometrical shapes and zigzags. The water-tank with a fountain of the mosque is located at the woodland in the complex.

As for the fountain of the mosque, it was located in the middle of the courtyard, amid the trees. The fountain of the complex was damaged during road works. The public fountain of the complex, according to its inscription, was finished in 1719.

Madrasah (School) built at the same time, it stands on the west side of the mosque. Cut stone was used in its construction. After being refurbished in 1961 it was reopened as a Public Library. The arched entry door of the madrasah contains an epigraph from Seyyid Vehbi. A square shaped courtyard holds domed madrasah rooms containing cupboards and stoves. There are also iwan rooms that were used by the students studying in the madrassa.

The rooms with eyvan, a vaulted room with one side open to a courtyard, located in the same direction of the graves, was built for madrasah (Qur'an School) students. In the period of its activity as a madrasah, it is known that the little complex had been decked out with a crowded permanent staff. Flowers motif used in the ornaments of the structure showed parallelism with the understanding of architecture during the “Tulip Era” (1718-1730) and increases its artistic value.

Library located to the north east of madrasah, it dates to 1727. The interior of this domed square structure is decorated with stencils. It is known that Damat İbrahim Pasha presented 187 volumes to the library. The structure with portico and dome, opposite the masjid on the right side of the crowned gate, is a library.

Imaret (Kitchen) built in 1726, it stands south of the madrasah. It consists of two rooms, a kitchen, toilets and a storage room carved in rock. It was used as a prison for some time and in 1949 transformed into a museum. Today it is used as a soup kitchen.

Sibyan Mektebi (Junior School) located to the south of the Imaret in the same courtyard, the first floor of this two-storey building was carved in rock. Today it is used as a storage depot. The second floor is made of cut stone and has three domed rooms each holding a window looking onto the courtyard.

Turkish Bath built in 1727 to the north of the mosque complex, it consists of separate buildings that are made out of cut stone. An octagonal saloon on the top floor holds changing rooms with wood cladding. There is an octagonal pool in the middle of the domed saloon.

Fountains are two fountains in the mosques complex; the first one is on the north wall of the mosque courtyard, and the other one, which holds an epigraph by Seyyid Vehbi (a poet), is on the supporting wall on the corner of Sibyan Mektebi. Both are adorned with various decorations. The public fountain of the complex, located on Şehzadepaşa Street, came to harm during road construction.

The grave of Damat Ibrahim Paşa and his sons are present in the southern section of the complex’s courtyard. The graves of Damat İbrahim Pasha and his sons, Mehmet and Mustafa, are situated in the southern section of the complex’s courtyard.

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HASEKİ SULTAN (HÜRREM) COMPLEX

Haseki, Fatih - İstanbul - Turkey

GPS : 41°00'30.8"N 28°56'30.6"E / 41.008556, 28.941833



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Haseki Hürrem Sultan Complex is located on Sami Pasha (Özbek Süleyman Efendi) street, on Haseki neighborhood in Fatih district a little further up from the Bayram Pasha Complex, and built between 1539 and 1551 behalf of Hürrem who was the haseki (favorite concubine) of Sultan Süleyman I.

Haseki Külliye is located in the Haseki region which takes its name from this complex of buildings built in the name of wife of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificient, Hürrem Sultan (Roxalana). Since the primary date of the construction is 1538-1539 the architect of this complex is said to be Sinan. But there is a controversy on this topic since the buildings are not listed in the architect’s works. But the construction date and the fact that these are built in the name of Süleyman’s dearest companion it must be under the chief architect’s control.

This complex has built in different in stages in different time periods. There is a mosque, an imaret (big house for kitchens and related functions) darüşşifa (house for health) madrasah, sibyan mektebi (school for young children, primary school), small cemetery and a wooden house in the complex. The mosque has been changed from the original state and the other ones damaged and rebuilt after the fires and earthquakes. (1918 big İstanbul fire, 1894 earthquake) All buildings except the mosque group together within a wall, but the mosque is left standing alone on the other side of the road.

Built for Haseki Hürrem Sultan, this kulliye is the first important complex to be taken on by Sinan after he was appointed chief architect. It is composed of a mosque, a medrese, a primary school, a hospital and a refectory which was later added to the complex (1550). In situating his buildings at different angles and leaving narrow passages and gaps between them, Sinan chose an organic approach rarely to be seen in his subsequent works, resulting in rich perspective effects.

The single domed mosque was to be later enlarged with an extra module (1612). Together with the neighbouring Bayram Pasha Kulliye (1635), the complex formed an important social centre. General planning of the complex looks somehow disorderly. It is because of the different stages of construction and the neighborhood’s dense population and irregular housing layout.

The third largest religious complex in the city, this area was constructed in a district in Istanbul known as Avrat Pazarı, which came to be called Haseki, the name it bears today. In the early 1550s, a hospital for women and a soup kitchen were added to the complex; the mosque residing there was enlarged in the early 17th century. The Haseki Complex is Sinan’s very first accomplishment.

He built the structures that make up this complex when he was declared master builder of the Royal Ottoman Architectural Guild; they attest to his creativity even at the beginning of his career.  These buildings can be viewed only from the outside as the mosque is the only building in the complex that is still in use and can be visited.  At a later date, the mosque was doubled in size by adding one more domed structure to it.  We can observe traces from early Ottoman architecture in the details of the section that was originally built by Sinan.

The general character and particular features such as the lotus flower column capitals, show that the primary school is also a work of these years. Although an inscription inside the hospital's entrance hall gives its construction date as 945 (1538/39), it cannot be accepted as s, reliable document for dating the building since this inscription plate was placed on the wall in 1911 (329 A.H.) when the hospital was restored.

On the other hand, the construction date of the hospice is known; for its outer gate is inscribed. It was built in 1550 (957 A.H.) by the order of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. In the analysis of this building complex, one observes that while the individual buildings are well designed there is no strong architectural order among them. Except for the hospital and the hospice which have a geometric relationship, the site planning does not exhibit a definite pattern.

This deficiency in site planning cannot be attributed to its architect's lack of talent and experience. Although the great Sinan was still in his architectural prime when he built the Haseki Complex, he had many well designed complexes at his disposal to study. What may have happened is this : the Haseki Complex was not planned as a whole, but was built in several stages.

The first building of the complex is obviously the mosque which was built in 1538/39. It was ordered by Haseki Hürrem (Roxelana) and designed and erected for her by Sinan. Then came the medrese and the primary school which were built the following year across the street from the mosque. In the third stage, the hospital and the hospice were planned. The latter was ordered in 1550 not by Haseki Hürrem but by her husband and curiously, this building is not recorded in any of the lists on Sinan's works.

One must therefore conclude that it was not designed and constructed by Sinan, who was occupied with the planning of the Siileymaniye at that time. The hospital, on the other hand, was ordered by Haseki Hurrem and is definitely one of Sinan's work. It is possible that the hospital was built before the hospice between 1540 and 1550. If this is the case, then the hospice was architectually related to it at a later date.

But the opposite seems more the case. That is to say, the hospital which has a number of awkward architectural elements, was designed in this manner because the architect had to fit his building in a lot that was restricted by streets, the medrese and the hospice on all four sides. It is therefore more likely that the hospital was built between 1550 and 1557, the year of Haseki Hürrem's death. The third largest religious complex in the city, this area was constructed in a district in Istanbul known as Avrat Pazarı, which came to be called Haseki, the name it bears today.

In the early 1550s, a hospital for women and a soup kitchen were added to the complex; the mosque residing there was enlarged in the early 17th century. It is Sinan’s first commission as royal architect, a product of his early years before he became world-famous for numerous structures throughout the city. A rarity during Ottoman times, the entire complex was commissioned by a wife of a Sultan and funded by her own money. The hospital there still serves women to this day.

Mosque
The first mosque on the site was completed in 1539 and had a single dome over a square space. In front was a latecomers’ area with five domes. Ahmet I added a domed section to the east of the structure in 1612 that some believe ruined it. The carved mithrab was filled with stalactites and decorated in a baroque style. The minbar pulpit has been decorated with wooden geometric dovetailing. The mosque and its dependencies were built by Sinan and completed in 1539, making these the earliest known works by him in the city.

The mosque is disappointing: originally it consisted of a small square room covered by a dome on stalactited pendentives, preceded by a rather pretentious porch of five bays which overlapped the building at both ends. It may perhaps have had a certain elegance of proportion and detail. But in 1612 a second and identical room was added on the north, the north wall being removed and its place taken by a great arch supported on two columns. The mihrab was then moved to the middle of the new extended east wall so that it stands squeezed behind one of the columns. The result is distinctly unpleasing.

Madrasah
Madrasah is located on the southeast of the complex facing the mosque on the other side of the road. Foundational record in the door dates the building 1551. Madrasah’s plan consists of a central open courtyard and around it a portico and small study cells each enclosed by a dome. There are 16 cells in the building around the courtyard. Each cell has its own fire stove (a kind of fireplace for heating and cooking) and a small window.

The entrance is from the inner court of the complex from a small garden which is also a playground for the primary school (sibyan mektebi) in the west side. You can see the domes of the madrasah and the imaret in the photos below. Building has a main large classroom on the central axis of the plan. This big classroom has also a dome which is higher and greater in size.

The unique adornments, upon the column’s capitals of the square planned madrasah, was completed between the years 1538 and 1540, cannot be seen anywhere else. The school has a monumental porch, which is entered from the gate on the left of the madrasahs’ courtyard, consists of two parts which colud be used in winter and summer.

Primary School (Sıbyan Mektebi)
The small school’s plan consists of two rectangular spaces one of which is a closed classroom and the other is a semi closed courtyard. Courtyard has one wall with top windows on the road side which is a part of the outer wall that encloses the complex and also separates it from the road. This space is used as a classroom in warm season and a play area for younger children. There is also a small pool in the garden in front of the school which has changed in time but still features some old details and provides a calming atmosphere.

The madrasah and the school form an educational unit within the complex and have a separate door from the road which opens between these two buildings. The canopy covering the entrance is an extended part of the schools roof which forms an impressive umbrella like form (sitting at the top of the stone wall) as a finishing detail. School’s walls are consist of both stone and brick. Red bricks are used in the archs in the north façade.

The most amazing part of this building is the wooden ceiling which consists of magnificent wooden shapes that form a quasi-crystalline structure. Such decagonal and quasi-crystalline tilings can be found in Islamic buildings on ceramic tiles, stone work and wooden ornamentations. But these ceiling was swollen and damaged because the roof was in bad condition. Our task was to draw the architectural project of the Külliye and its buildings in their damaged and present form. While working on the school we realized that the roof was leaking and the wooden tiles were damaged by rain water since some of the metal claddings of the roof were missing.

Worst of all we realized on a Monday thieves stole the rest of the metal claddings and left the roof structure open, just after we delivered our report about this school with its missing roof claddings and presented on Friday to the Department of Foundations which was the authorized body in this project. The thieves were never found. (and I curse them ever since) Unfortunately it took quite a long time before they fixed the ceiling due to inefficient bureaucracy and the ceiling got damaged some more.

Cure House (Darüşşifa)
This health house is the most extraordinary building within the complex with its original plan and form. From a beautiful portal in the north one can enter a courtyard with an octagonal plan. The spaces surrounding the courtyard have domes which planned as spatial and flexible areas. These areas serve as treatment stations. Some of the small rooms are thought to be designed for medicine preparations and larger ones as patient dorms.

At this medical facility all kinds of illnesses were to be treated. Two physicians, two surgeons, two ophthalmologists, two pharmacists, two pharmacy assistants, one secretary, one steward, one cook, one cellar master, four patient attendants, two servants, two laundrymen and other personnel for a total of 28 employees. Two days a week medicine was dispensed free of charge to those who wanted it from outside the hospital. The physicians didn’t just have to be good doctors; they had also to be always smiling, perceptive and knowledgeable, among other attributes specified in the foundation deed.

The hospital is behind the medrese, entered from the street behind the külliye to the north. It is a building of most unusual form: the court is octagonal but without a columned portico. The two large corner rooms at the back, whose great domes have stalactited pendentives coming far down the walls, originally opened to the courtyard through huge arches, now glassed-in; with these open rooms or eyvans all the other wards and chambers of the hospital communicated.

The structure, behind the madrasah, measures 27 x 34.8 meters and serves as hospital. The domes of the cut stone hospital, which was built in 1550, are bricks. The hospital, with two iwans and having 22 rooms, was converted into a centre in 1848 especially where women in need of nursing were cured. A part of the hospital was arranged as a jail for women in 1869.

The assignment of a doctor to the hospital in 1871 prevented inconvenience into the medical services. The hospital, whose patient numbers continually increased, was expanded a bit more by inclusion of the Moralı Ali Bey Mansion in 1882. When the buildings, which were restored in 1911, were damaged in the fire of 1918, the hospital was closed for some time. The hospital, restored between in years 1946 and 1948, then resumed its service.

Kitchen (İmaret)
This building is not listed in the Sinan’s works but considered to be under his supervision. Kitchen spaces are planned with a central courtyard like other buildings with portico and domed roofs. The impressive part of the building is the roof with its funnels on top of the domes that provide an original form for the entire complex. From the north façade these domes and the funnels composition form a stunning silhouette.

Külliye has also a wooden house on the south façade which is supposed to be built for the imam of the mosque. House is also in poor condition and waiting to be renovated with the whole complex. The imaret, built of cut and rubble stone, is dated to 1540, and is encircled a porched courtyard. According to its inscription, the plain fountain of the imaret to the left of the gate on the street was built in 1766.

The imaret, which was still in use up until the early 1970s, is beyond the mektep, entered through a monumental portal which leads to an alleyway. At the end of this, one enters the long rectangular courtyard of the imaret, shaded with trees. Vast kitchens with large domes and enormous chimneys (better seen from inside at the back) line three sides of the courtyard.

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SULTAN AHMET MOSQUE (THE BLUE MOSQUE)

Sultanahmet - Istanbul - Turkey

GPS : 41°00'20.0"N 28°58'36.0"E / 41.005556, 28.976667



PHOTOGRAPHS ALBUM - 1

PHOTOGRAPHS ALBUM - 2

Work on the Complex of Ahmed I (1603-1617) began in August 1609 (1108 AH). The southern part of the ancient Hippodrome or Atmeydani (today's Sultanahmet Square) was cleared of residential palaces belonging to members of the aristocracy and a large portion of the Byzantine sphendone (the semi-circular end of the hippodrome) was taken down to make space for the mosque. Construction on the mosque finished in 1617 just before the sultan's death and work on the complex (külliye) continued for three years under his sons Mustafa I (1617-1618) and Osman II (1618-1622), who also built a mausoleum for their father and predecessor.

For a variety of reasons including the terrain of the site, master architect Sedefkar Mehmet Aga organized the complex's buildings in functional groups in the vicinity of the mosque rather than arrange them symmetrically around the mosque as was done in its precedents at Fatih and Süleymaniye.

The complex is composed of a mosque, royal pavilion (hünkar kasri), mausoleum (türbe), madrasa (medrese), school for koran readers (dar'ül kurra), Koranic school for boys (mekteb), hospice (tabhane), hospital (darüssifa), soup kitchen (imaret), an open air market street (arasta), rental rooms (kira odalari) and mansions (konak), cisterns (mahzen) and public fountains (sebil). The complex buildings conform to the orientation of the mosque, 39 degrees east of south.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) is the only one which has 6 minarets among mosques in Istanbul. The four minarets with three sherefes each (minaret balcony) were erected at the four corners of the mosque, and the remaining two short minarets with two sherefes each were erected opposite at two corners of the courtyard. The central dome, placed on four piers, is 33.6 meters in diameter and 43 meters high at its central point.  It is supported by four semi-domes. The ceiling structure of the Blue mosque is similar to the Şehzadebaşı (Prince) Mosque.

The interior of the mosque, which is 64 x 72 m, is lighted with 260 windows. The outer courtyard, encircled with windowed walls, has eight doors on both sides and in front. The inner courtyard with marble floor coverings is enclosed with 30 domes. The tulip and carnations motifs of the fountain with six columns in the inner courtyard is eye-catching. It is entered by the inner court with three doors.

Those three doors and the main door of the outer court are made of bronze.  On the pulpit of the mosque with nacre-inlay, the embroidered muezzin mahfil (a gallery/platform for the call to prayer) and the niche were worked with the architectural details. In addition, it has artistic value with carpets, kilims, rahles (reading desks), engravings, and colourful stained-glass windows.

The Sultanahmet Mosque has the unusual feature of having six minarets, four of which rise from the corners mosque and two lower minarets placed at the front corners of the courtyard. The four around the mosque have three balconies each, while the courtyard minarets are furnished with two. All six minarets have fluted shafts and balconies with stalactite corbels. The northeastern minaret was restored in 1955.

The mosque, named after its donor Sultan Ahmed I, has been donned the name "Blue" by foreign travelers based on the Kütahya tiles in dominant tones of blue, turquoise and green that cover most of its interior. The interior galleries have displays of tiles composed in panels at the balcony level depicting gardens with cypresses, flowers and fruit trees, but the most precious tiles have been used to decorate the royal lodge, which has notable jade and gilt work in its marble mihrab niche.

Similar motifs, painted in gold and corresponding colors, adorn the multiple convex facets of the elephant feet above their marble bases, two of which are furnished with fountains. This rich polychrome complexion of the interior comes alive with sublime light flooding the interior from three tiers of windows on the walls and numerous others pierced into the domes: The central dome has twenty-eight windows in its drum and each of the four semi-domes has fourteen. Colored glasses on windows were originally imported from Venice, but have since been replaced with modern substitutes.

The preacher's pulpit, doors and window shutters display mastery of woodcarving and mother of pearl inlay of the period. The mosque holds many treasures, such as Quranic tablets from the hand of the renowned Ameti Kasim Gubari, while many others have been lost or placed in museums. The interior has been renovated several times, as early as 1837, and also more recently.

The walled mosque precinct, enclosing the mosque and the royal pavilion, occupies the peak of a hill alongside the Atmeydani to the northwest. Terraces descend down to the Bosphorus on the southeast side of the precinct wall. In 1912, a fire leveled the Ishakpasa (today's Küçükayasofya) neighborhood down the hill from the mosque, allowing archaeologists to reveal the remains of the Great Palace of Emperors (Büyük Saray) that was inhabited between the 4th and the 12th centuries. The mosque and market streets that run along its precinct wall to the southeast were built over the undercrofts of this palace.

Further excavations in the market street and vicinity in 1935-1938, 1951-1954 and from 1983 to our day have unearthed 6th century palace floor mosaics that are on display at the Great Palace Mosaic Museum that occupies part of the rebuilt market street. Nothing remains of the rental rooms that were located above the stores here and others that were distributed among the buildings of the complex. The hamam of the market street, located at its southwest end, remains in disrepair.

On the north corner of the precinct, the madrasa (school for Koran readers) and the mausoleum form an enclosed cluster. These buildings were built on the cisterns of the 4th century Byzantine Sphendone, which was already in disuse by the early 13th century. The soup kitchen, hospital, and hospice form a second cluster that was built on top of the sphendone after the Hippodrome was filled with earth from the mosque's excavation. Only sections of the soup kitchen remain at this location today where an industrial school complex (mekteb-i sanayi) was built in the 19th century.

The qibla wall of the Sultan Ahmed I mosque doubles as a retaining wall to the southeast where there is a partial basement (mahzen) under the walled qibla garden; it is first in a series of terraces that were built downhill from the mosque. From here, two gated passages lead down to the level of rental housing that sits above market stores, culminating at portals on the market street and Tavukhane Street. An intermediate layer contains seven more rental rooms and a public fountain. The qibla wall has been differentiated in its design from the other walls to accommodate its special function.

Where the peripheral extensions on three sides are covered with three semi-domes, the qibla recess is composed with two semi-domes on the sides, joining a straight wall in between, where the tall marble frame of the mihrab niche is positioned at the center. The piers supporting the structure, which project freely into the mosque interior on three sides, have been restrained along the qibla wall, resulting in a flatter but more subtly varied surface. A slender marble minbar rises along the pilaster to the right of the mihrab, and is crowned with a golden crescent above its conical cap.

The arasta or market street of Sultanahmet was to provide income for the mosque and its dependencies. It is the only example of its kind to have remained from the 17th century. It is composed of two facing rows of stores running northeast and southwest, with over thirty stores in each row. There is a portal at the northeast end through which a passage leads up to the qibla garden of the mosque, and a single row of nine stores beyond it that used to be double-story rental rooms. An additional five stores are located around the corner at the southwest end on Tavukhane Street, where the market baths (arasta hamami) are located.

There are two adjacent portals here, one of which may have belonged to a rental mansion; the other marks the location of the vaulted passage that leads up to the qibla garden. Since the market street was destroyed by fire in 1912 the area had been haphazardly rebuilt on multiple occasions up until the 1980s at which point the General Directorate of Foundations (Vakiflar Genel Müdürlügü) carried out a historical reconstruction of the stores. Traces of the domed rental rooms above stores were judged inadequate guides to a reconstruction, but were maintained as archaeological evidence. The Mosaic Museum, established in 1953 and re-opened as the Great Palace Mosaic Museum in 1997, occupies 16 rooms of the market street.

The madrasa, mausoleum and a funerary garden are accessed from a private lane that is entered from the mosque precinct. They are isolated from the outside by walls that closely follow the outline of the two buildings. The mausoleum, located on the north side of the lane, is a large square building set in a garden and entered from a three-bay domed portico to the northeast.

Elevated from the surrounding grounds, the mosque courtyard is entered through three portals with cascading steps. The main entrance is to the northwest in axis with the central gate on Sultanahmet Square. It is deep and has a stalactite semi-dome. Inside, a domed arcade frames the court on three sides and the mosque portico - with arches slightly wider and taller than those of the arcade - completes the gallery on the fourth side. The two side entrances are found on either end of the domed portico. At the center of the courtyard, in axis with the main entrance, is a hexagonal fountain. It is crowned by a pent roof raised on elaborately carved arches that spring from six marble columns; this roof has recently been replaced by a small dome.

The columns of the arcade and the portico are also carved from marble as well as porphyry, and the floor is paved with marble tiles. The courtyard has two rows of superimposed windows - rectangular below and arched above - that are placed at regular intervals on all three façades, which are topped with a marble balustrade. A double-story gallery runs along the court on the exterior, with ablution spigots provided at its basement level. This narrow gallery, which has a slanted roof at the level of the upper court windows, is continued at a grander scale and flanks the prayer hall on either side where it is roofed with domes and barrel vaults, interrupted only by the projecting piers.

The prayer hall's main entrance is from the courtyard and there are two secondary side entrances. The main entrance is highlighted by the raised central portico dome, which bears a marble Quranic panel on its tall drum. Set in a niche with a stalactite semi-dome, the entry has a triptych foundation plaque. The prayer hall is a rectangle, slightly wider than it is long. Inside, it is spacious and open, with a focus around the tall central dome. The dome sits on pendentives carried on four colossal piers or "elephant feet" that delineate the central court. Beyond the court, the space is extended by use of semi-domes and buttresses that transfer the lateral loads to piers set inside the walls.

The central dome is surrounded by four semi-domes below its drum, which are wrapped by smaller semi-domes - three on all sides except for the qibla wall. The semi-domes are braced with buttresses on either side that are articulated with hipped roofs and domed turrets. This structural arrangement provides for a spacious and open interior and creates an effect of cascading domes on the exterior. The composition ends at the four corners where small single domes complete the pyramidal succession.

The flow of space on the interior is uninterrupted except for a few functional elements. There is a muezzin's platform elevated on columns in front of the southern pier, which has geometric patterns carved in its marble balustrade. An elaborately decorated wooden pulpit is set adjacent to the opposite pier. The royal lodge (hünkar mahfili), a screened platform raised on arches carried on precious marble columns, is located behind this pier and occupies the bay underneath the eastern corner dome.

It is accessed from inside the mosque, as well as from the royal kiosk outside. An arcade, with balustrades at the balcony level, follows the entire length of the interior walls with the exception of the qibla wall. It is broken up into segments by the projecting structural piers and the supporting piers of the smaller semi-domes, which replace the arcade columns on their way down.

The small domed building behind the mausoleum is a dar'ül kurra, or a school for training Koran readers. It is built close to the mausoleum eyvan into which it opens with a large window. A room for the timekeeper of the mosque (muvakkithane) was added to the front of the mausoleum in the 18th or 19th century, replacing a sebil. There is a walled-in cemetery (hazire) between the dar'ül kurra and the mosque precinct. There were six adjoining stores on the Hippodrome side of the cemetery, which appear as two-story wooden buildings with domes in 19th century photographs.

The hospice (tabhane), soup kitchen (imaret), hospital (darüşşifa) were erected one behind the other over the sphendone (the semi-circular end of the hippodrome) to the southwest of the mosque. At this end, the hippodrome is a terrace supported by a deep circular wall of vaults and arches that retain the hill towards the Marmara Sea. The retaining wall has maintained its function and is still visible today.

The charity cluster of Sultan Ahmed I, however, was already in ruins by the time the School of Industry (Mekteb-i Sanayi) was erected at this location in 1866. Sections of the hospital, the soup kitchen and possibly a former Sword Factory (Kiliçhane) that had existed here in some form since Byzantine times, were incorporated into the campus. The buildings that occupy the site today are from 1894 and were built by Architect Raimondo D'Aronco after the original school collapsed in an earthquake.

Along with the School of Industry, three separate buildings originally housed the Janissary Museum (Yeniçeri Müzesi), the Ministry of Agriculture, Mining and Forestry (Ziraat, Maadin ve Orman Nezareti) and the School of Industry. The remains of the hospital and soup kitchen were restored and incorporated into the new development. Restored in 1977, the buildings are in use by the Registrar of Marmara University (Marmara Üniversitesi Rektörlüğü) and the Sultanahmet School of Industrial Arts (Sultanahmet Endüstri Meslek Lisesi).

Minarets
The Blue Mosque with all six minarets visibleThe Sultan Ahmed Mosque is one of the two mosques in Turkey that has six minarets, the other is in Adana. When the number of minarets was revealed, the Sultan was criticized for presumption, since this was, at the time, the same number as at the mosque of the Ka'aba in Mecca. He overcame this problem by paying for a seventh minaret at the Mecca mosque. Four minarets stand at the corners of the mosque. Each of these fluted, pencil-shaped minarets has three balconies (Şerefe) with stalactite corbels, while the two others at the end of the forecourt only have two balconies.

Until recently the muezzin or prayer-caller had to climb a narrow spiral staircase five times a day to announce the call to prayer. Today a public address system is used, and the call can be heard across the old part of the city, echoed by other mosques in the vicinity. Large crowds of both Turks and tourists gather at sunset in the park facing the mosque to hear the call to evening prayers, as the sun sets and the mosque is brilliantly illuminated by coloured floodlights.

Hünkar Kasrı
There is a royal kiosk (hünkar kasri) to the southeast of the mosque, which was rebuilt recently following destruction by fire. It features, for the first time in Ottoman architecture, the entry ramp, which allowed the sultan to enter the lodge mounted on his horse. The ramp leads up to a loggia with a view over the Bosphorus, with two retiring rooms on one side and a connection to the royal lodge inside the mosque on the other. Today, the royal kiosk is home to the Carpet and Kilim Museum (Hali ve Kilim Müzesi) that displays historic samples from mosques around Anatolia.

Madrasa (School)
The madrasa stands on the opposite side of the lane from the mausoleum and the walled-in cemetery. It is composed of twenty-four rooms around a rectangular arcaded courtyard with a fountain at the center. The main entrance, in axis with the fountain, is located at the center of the northwestern wing. Traces of columns around the fountain suggest that it may have been roofed. The madrasa rooms have windows opening to the courtyard and the exterior and are equipped with fireplaces (ocak) and shelving niches.

The main classroom (dersane) is atypically annexed at the northern corner of the cloister rather than on its longitudinal axis. Madrasa functions were discontinued with the education reform law (Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu) in 1924. The building was restored in 1935 and the courtyard was covered with a glass roof to prepare for its new use as an archive for the Directorate of Public Affairs.

Hospital
The hospital of the Sultanahmet Complex is often identified as an insane asylum (timarhane) and was probably dedicated to that purpose. Located at the western end of its cluster closest to the circular retaining wall, the hospital consisted of rooms around an arcaded courtyard and adjoining baths (darüssifa hamami). Its rooms and portico had collapsed prior to the construction of the School of Industry but its external walls and main portal, which faced northeast, have been preserved. Certain columns and capitals belonging to its portico have been used at the entrance of the school building.

Kitchen
There are three separate structures of the soup kitchen that are identifiable upon entering the School of Industrial Arts from Sokollu Mehmet Pasa Highway. The kitchens (matbah or mutfak) have been preserved entirely whereas the bakery (firin) and the cellar (kiler) have been modified. The kitchens were entered from northeast and southwest and had a vaulted storage room and a chimney. Their twin domes had ventilation slits along the drum and oculi with glass lantern for further aeration.

The bakery, which opens to the southwest towards the kitchen, is a square building with four domes. Its ovens have been enclosed and only one of its chimneys remains. The cellar is the largest structure in the soup kitchen and is located to the west towards the hospital. There is no trace of the dining hall (mekel or yemekhane).

The Koranic school and other buildings
The Koranic school, a single room raised on a vaulted basement, is attached to the northeast wall of the outer courtyard next to a gate. It has a fireplace, shelving niches and a small toilet. It has a flat roof but may have been covered with a dome prior to rebuilding after the 1912 fire. The northeast façade has some of the original stone paneling.

Turkish Bath (Hamam)
The baths were also damaged in the fire of 1912, at which time the changing room collapsed. It was spared from destruction during the Great Palace Excavation and remains in ruinous condition. It has a changing room leading into an L-shaped warm room (iliklik) that wraps around the hot room, and a furnace (külhan) that supplied the hot water. The hot room can be entered from either wing of the warm room and consists of a hexagonal bathing area at the center surrounded by private bathing cells (halvet) that square off the room. It has lost its dome and marble fixtures.

Tomb
The tomb of Sultan Ahmet I the türbe (tomb) of the Blue Mosque’s great patron, is on the north side of the mosque facing Sultanahmet Park. Ahmet, who had ascended to the imperial throne aged 13, died one year after the mosque was constructed, aged only 27. Buried with Ahmet are his wife, Kösem, who was strangled to death in the Topkapı Harem, and his sons, Sultan Osman II (r 1618-22), Sultan Murat IV (r 1623-40) and Prince Beyazıt (murdered by Murat).

The tomb is decorated with 7th century Iznik tiles and plaster work in a square plan. The tomb of Sultan Ahmed I commenced by Sultan Mustafa I and was finished by Sultan Osman II (Osman the Young) It took 3 years and was completed in the year 1619. The architect was Sedefkar Mehmed Ağa who had also built the Sultanahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) complex. This hall is extended with an eyvan opposite the entry. The interior is decorated with Kütahya tiles, penwork (kalemisi) and painting on plasterwork (malakari) that was restored in the 19th century. The exterior is paneled with marble.

The tomb of Sultan Ahmet I is located to the north of Sultanahmet Mosque (Known as Blue Mosque). Ahmet I was born in 1590 and became sultan when he was only 14. He was the one who rejected and stopped the tradition of killing siblings for the unity of the country which started with Beyezid and even became a law during the time of Fatih. He also commanded that the throne should be ascended by the eldest one in the dynasty. In 1617 Sultan Ahmed I died and was buried in his tomb.

Sultan Ahmet Tomb has a square plan and is covered with a dome that is supported by a polygon drum. The arcade after the entrance is covered with three domes. The inside of the tomb is decorated with rich tiles, pen and wood crafts. Above the tile panels, there is an epigraph surrounding the structure written with white calligraphy over dark blue background. In the tomb, also buried Kösem Sultan (Mahpeyker Sultan, wife of Sultan Ahmed I), their sons Sultan Murad IV and Sultan Osman II, their daughter Ayşe Sultan in addition to about forty other members of the dynasty .

Cemetery
Located on the north west corner of the of Sultan Ahmed Mosque (The Blue Mosque) complex.

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BAYEZID II MOSQUE COMPLEX

Bayezıt Square, Fatih - Istanbul - Turkey

GPS : 41°00'37.0"N 28°57'55.0"E / 41.010278, 28.965278



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The Beyazid Camii was commissioned by Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II, and was the second large imperial mosque complex to be erected in Istanbul after the Conquest. As the earliest complex, the Fatih Mosque was subsequently destroyed by earthquakes and completely rebuilt in a different style, the Beyazidiye complex is thus of considerable historical and architectural significance.

The surrounding külliye complex (madrasah, primary school, imaret (public kitchen) and hammam), date from 1501 to 1506. The dome was partially rebuilt after an earthquake in 1509, and Mimar Sinan conducted further repairs in 1573-74. The minarets burned separately in 1683 and 1764. An inscription above the courtyard entrance suggests that repairs were also conducted in 1767.

The complex, which is scattered throughout Bayezıt Square, was built by Sultan Bayezid II and completed in the years 1500-1505. It was originally thought to have been designed by Architect Sinan Hayreddin or Architect Kemaleddin but later research suggests the architect may have been Yakubşah Bin Sultan. The complex is composed of a mosque, a kitchen, a primary school, a hospital, a medresse, a hamam, a soup kitchen for the poor and a caravanserai. It differs from the Faith centre before it, for the fact that it was not built symmetrically, but in a seemingly random style.

Bayezid Mosque is at the center of the complex. Its main dome is 16.78 meters in diameter and is supported by four pillars. The stone and wood craftmanship and stained glass are artistic masterpieces. The courtyard paving materials and pillars used for the reservoir for ablutions were reclaimed from Byzantine ruins and re-used. These pillars in particular demonstrate the quality of Byzantine workmanship.

This complex and its surrounding neighborhood and square, all named after Bayezid II, was built between 1501 and 1505 on the grounds of the Forum Theodosius (Forum Tauri), which was flanked by the Roman Capitol. Situated on a hilltop between the Mese (the main route of the historic peninsula) and the former site of the old Ottoman palace (Saray-i Atik), the complex consists of a mosque (cami), madrasa (medrese), soup-kitchen (imaret), Quranic school (mekteb), caravanserai (kervansaray), baths (hamam) and two tombs (türbe).

The design is often attributed to head-architect Mimar Hayreddin, while some scholars have proposed a major role for lesser-known Yakupsah bin Sultansah. It is the second large Ottoman complex built in Istanbul after Fatih, and the third complex built by Bayezid II (1481-1512) after Amasya and Edirne, and was operated with the income of Pirinç Han in Bursa and a han, bedesten and baths in Salonica.

The buildings of the complex are placed without any apparent order on the large site, with no traces of an outer precinct wall. The soup-kitchen, caravanserai, Quranic School and the tombs are clustered around the mosque to the west, while the madrasa and the baths are separated out, positioned about 120 and 250 meters to the west of the mosque respectively. The mosque dome was partially rebuilt after the 1509 earthquake, and Mimar Sinan conducted repairs in 1573-74.

The minarets were burnt separately in 1683 and 1764 and the dome was repaired again in 1754. An inscription above the northeast courtyard entrance suggests that repairs were also conducted in 1767. A restoration is currently under way at the mosque, while the madrasa, baths and Quranic school were restored at different dates to house library and museums.

Although the buildings have remained largely intact, changes in the layout of Beyazit Square throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have transformed their context. Old photographs show that the east end of the square was an informal extension of the market neighborhood beyond the mosque, with tree-shaded cafes around the main courtyard entrance.

The old Ottoman Palace to the northwest of the mosque was replaced with the large neo-classical campus of the Ministry of Defense in 1867, with a tree-lined road leading to its monumental gate passing between the mosque and the madrasa. The complex was cut off from the street when Yeniçeriler street was lowered in the mid 1950s, when the square was redesigned as a paved open plaza with multiple levels, and renamed Hürriyet (Liberty) Square.

The Mosque
The mosque is oriented along the northwest-southeast axis and is preceded by a courtyard to the northwest. Three monumental portals, facing northwest, southeast and southwest, lead into the square open courtyard, which is enveloped by the domed arcade and the mosque portico. The ablution fountain at the center of the courtyard was renovated with a roof during the rule of Murad IV (1623-1640). The courtyard arcade hosted an open bazaar each year during Ramadan until the 1920s.

The prayer hall is entered through a muqarnas portal from a portico. It is the same size as the mosque courtyard and consists of a domed central space extended with two semi-domes along the qibla axis and side arcades covered with four small domes. The central dome, which measures 16.80 meters in diameter at a height of fourty-four meters, is carried on four colossal piers that are woven into the colonnade separating the side arcades from the main space.

A sultan's lodge (hünkar mahfili) occupies the qibla end of the southwest arcade and is accessed primarily from the exterior. There is a müezzin's lodge (müezzin mahfili) adjoining the inner side of the western pier. The space is lit with twenty windows at the base of the dome and seven windows on each semi-dome, in addition to two tiers of windows on the walls.

Hospice wings designed to host wondering dervishes, a common feature of early Ottoman mosques, are also seen here adjoining the prayer hall at the end of the courtyard walls. Originally designed as four domed rooms surrounding a domed central hall with separate access from the square, the wings were integrated into the prayer hall sometime during the sixteenth century and now consist of three consecutive rooms separated by archways. A small domed structure was added to the end of the southwest wing in 1767 to house the library of Şeyhülislam Hacı Veliyüddin Efendi.

A cemetery with walls envelops three sides of the mosque, extending from the hospice wings to the main street. The side entrances into the mosque, which are located next to the hospice wings, are accessed through gates along the cemetery walls. Two minarets are attached at the outward ends of the hospice wings; the northeast minaret was rebuilt after an earthquake while the southwest minaret, restored in 1953-54, retains its original terracotta decoration.

The structure of the Bayezid mosque is considered a stepping stone between early Ottoman architecture and classical Ottoman architecture, characterized by a central dome held by semi-domes on all four sides. Although the mosque is constructed entirely of cut stone, colored stones and marbles appropriated from Byzantine ruins were used throughout the exterior and interior to highlight the architecture, such as red porphyry columns marking entrance bays along the courtyard arcade.

Muqarnas carvings embellish all capitals and portals, the mihrab niche and minaret balconies. The minbar, the sultan's lodge and the women's section, which is a balcony placed above the prayer hall entrance, exhibit the fine stone latticework of the period and the original wood carvings can be seen on doors and windowpanes.

Exterior Architecture
The mosque is oriented along the northwest-southeast axis with a courtyard to the northwest with an area almost equal to that of the mosque itself. the courtyard has monumental entrance portals on each side. The courtyard is a colonnaded peristyle, with twenty ancient columns of porphyry, verd antique and granite salvaged from churches and ancient ruins, roofed with 24 small domes, and with a pavement in polychrome marble.

The mosque itself is approximately 40 meters square, with a 17 meter diameter dome. The design is that of a central dome held by semi-domes on all four sides. The mosque is constructed entirely of cut stone appropriating colored stones and marbles appropriated from nearby Byzantine ruins.

Interior Architecture
The interior of the mosque is patterned after the Hagia Sophia on a smaller scale. In addition to the huge central dome, semidomes to the east and west form a nave, whereas to the north and south extend side aisles, each with four small domes which extend the length of the mosque, but which are not divided into galleries. The dome is supported by huge rectangular piers, with smooth pendentives and stalactite decorations. The space is lit with twenty windows at the base of the dome and seven windows on each semi-dome, in addition to two tiers of windows on the walls.

The space is lit with twenty windows at the base of the dome and seven windows on each semi-dome, in addition to two tiers of windows on the walls. On the west side, a broad extended corridor extends considerable beyond the main structure of the building. Originally designed as four domed rooms to serve as a hospice for wandering dervishes, the wings were integrated into the prayer hall in the sixteenth century and now consist of three consecutive rooms separated by archways. At the ends of these wings are the two minarets.

The Tombs Of Sultan Bayezid II And Selçuk Hatun
Sultan Selim I (1512-1520), who succeeded to the throne after Sultan Bayezid II, built a tomb for his father behind the qibla wall of his mosque. Entered through an eighteenth century portico to the northwest, the tomb is a domed octagonal chamber illuminated with two tiers of windows.

Behind the mosque is a small garden, containing the türbe (tombs) of Sultan Bayezid II, his daughter Selçuk Hatun, and Grand Vizier Koca Mustafa Reşid Pasha.

The interior, which houses the solitary sarcophagus of Bayezid II, has neo-baroque decoration from the late Ottoman period. Selçuk Hatun, one of the five daughters of Sultan Bayezid II, built her tomb during the construction of the mosque and was buried there upon her death in 1508.

It is an identical but smaller structure found immediately to the east of the sultan's tomb. Both tombs are situated inside the walls of the mosque cemetery (hazire) where government officials and their families were buried beginning in the late seventeenth century. A small rectangular tomb in eclectic style was built for Reşid Paşa at the southwest corner of the cemetery wall in 1857.

The Soup-kitchen And Caravanserai
The soup-kitchen and caravanserai are contained in a large rectangular structure built about twenty-meters outside of the northeast hospice wing, parallel to the mosque. The soup-kitchen consists of a series of a kitchens, cellars and dining rooms arranged irregularly around a partially arcaded courtyard. The caravanserai, a single room covered with six domes, adjoins the soup-kitchen to the northwest. The soup-kitchen courtyard and the caravanserai have portals facing the mosque to the northeast and are linked with a courtyard door.

The former public kitchens of the mosque was converted into the State Library of Istanbul by Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1882 and houses over 120,000 books and 7000 manuscripts. Likewise, the former madrasah now houses the Istanbul Municipal Library. Today, the soup-kitchen/caravanserai compound is occupied by the Bayezid State Library, which moved into the building following its restoration between 1947 and 1955.

The Madrasa
The Bayezid madrasa has a rectangular plan oriented along the northeast-southwest axis and is entered through a portal facing northeast. It consists of an arcaded open courtyard surrounded by domed rooms on three sides and a large classroom (dersane) on the forth side, which is aligned with the entrance across the courtyard. A roofed octagonal fountain is midway between the classroom and the entrance. Each madrasa cell is equipped with a furnace and shelving niche and has two lower and one upper window each, except for the larger corners cells which have an additional window.

The classroom, which is twice as tall as the rooms, was assembled with alternating courses of brick and cut stone, in contrast with the plain stone structure of the rooms. The entrance was originally accessed from an enclosed precourt with a gate, which was demolished in the 1940s. One of the most important educational institutions of the Ottoman city, the madrasa was restored during the early Republican period to house the Municipal Museum, followed by the Municipal Library. Directorate of Religious Foundations (Vakiflar Genel Müdürlügü) who conducted a second restoration prior to the opening of the Religious Foundations Museum for the Turkish Calligraphic Arts at the Bayezid Madrasa in 1984.

The Baths
The public baths (hamam) of the Bayezid complex, one of the largest in the city, is located on Yeniçeriler Road, at the corner of Beyazid Külhani Street. It is a double-bath with adjoining men's (east) and women's (west) sections. Both sections consist of a large dressing room, a cold room with two private cells and a hot room with four private cells, which open into each other, and a common furnace (külhan) at the northern end that heats up water drawn from a nearby well. The dressing room of the men's section is entered from the main road while the women's section is entered from the side street.

Built at the same time as the mosque, the baths were donated to the religious foundation of Gülbahar Hatun, the wife of Bayezid II. A renovation was conducted following a fire 1714. The Bayezid baths are also known for masseur Patrona Halil, who is mistakenly thought to have been working there before he led the 1730 uprising that deposed of Ahmed III (1703-1730). Abandoned for many years during the Republican era, the baths were restored in the 1960s to house the central library of Istanbul University.

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ŞEHZADE MOSQUE COMPLEX

Şehzadebaşı, Fatih - Istanbul - Turkey

GPS : 41°00'51.0"N 28°57'25.0"E / 41.014167, 28.956944



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The Şehzade Mosque is an Ottoman imperial mosque located in the Şehzadebaşı neighborhood of district of Fatih, on the third hill of Istanbul, Turkey. It is sometimes referred to as the “Prince's Mosque” in English. Located on the main artery connecting Beyazit to Edirnekapı, the site is bounded by the Divanyolu boulevard to its south and the Valens aqueduct, constructed during the Roman era, to its north. Its west side borders a park along Atatürk boulevard adjacent to Saraçhane Square. Overall, the site measures approximately 240 meters wide east to west and 160 meters long north to south.

The Şehzade Mosque was commissioned by Sultan Süleyman I in memory of his eldest son by Hürrem, Prince Mehmet, who died of smallpox at the age of 21 in 1543, though the cause for his death is disputed. It was the first major commission by the Imperial Architect Mimar Sinan, and was completed in 1548. It is considered by architectural historians as Sinan's first masterpiece of classical Ottoman architecture.

According its Persian inscription Şehzade Mosque and Complex was built by Imperial Architect Mimar Sinan between 1543 and 1548, on behalf of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent’s son by Hürrem, Şehzade Mehmet, who died of smallpox at the age of 21 in 1543 in Manisa. The general opinion is the Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent had started the construction on his own behalf; however, he dedicated this complex to his favourite son, who died in 22.

Şehzade complex (Külliye) consists of the mosque, the tomb (türbe) of Prince Mehmet (which was completed prior to the mosque), two Qur'an schools (medrese), a public kitchen (imaret) which served food to the poor, and a caravansarai. The mosque and its courtyard are surrounded by a wall that separates them from the rest of the complex.

Exterior Architecture
The mosque is surrounded by an inner colonnaded courtyard (avlu) with an area equal to that of the mosque itself. The courtyard is bordered by a portico with five domed bays on each side, with arches in alternating pink and white marble. At the center is an ablution fountain (şadırvan), which was a later donation from Sultan Murat IV. The two minarets have elaborate geometric sculpture in low bas-relief and occasional terracotta inlays.

The mosque itself has a square plan, covered by a central dome, flanked by four half-domes. The dome is supported by four piers, and has a diameter of 19 meters and it is 37 meters high. It was in this building that Sinan first adopted the technique of placing colonnaded galleries along the entire length of the north and south facades in order to conceal the buttresses.

Interior Architecture
The interior of the Şehzade Mosque has a symmetrical plan, with the area under the central dome expanded by use of four semidomes, one on each side, in the shape of a four leaf clover. This technique was not entirely successful, as it isolated the four huge piers needed to support the central dome, and was never again repeated by Sinan. The interior of the mosque has a very simple design, without galleries.

Complex
The complex is composed of several distinct structures within a polygonal walled perimeter. Şehzade complex (Külliye) is situated between Fatih Sultan Mehmet II and Sultan Bayezid II complexes. The Külliye consists of the mosque, and six unique mausolea (türbe) ( 1 of Prince Mehmet (which was completed prior to the mosque), two Qur'an schools (medrese), tabhane, elementary school, cemetery, a public kitchen (imaret) which served food to the poor, and a caravansarai.

The mosque and its courtyard are surrounded by a wall that separates them from the rest of the complex. Construction of the complex began in 1544 CE (AH 951) and was largely completed by 1549 CE (AH 956).

The complex is composed of several distinct structures within a polygonal walled perimeter. Overall, the site measures approximately 240 meters wide east to west and 160 meters long north to south. The mosque is located at the center of the walled site, surrounded by gardens and pathways leading to other buildings within the complex. The mosque is accessible from the north, south, and west via five primary entrances; three portals open into the avlu and two into the prayer hall. The qibla wall forms the eastern elevation of the mosque.

The plan of the mosque is composed of two adjacent squares, each measuring forty-two meters to a side. The western half of the mosque forms an avlu, a square central courtyard surrounded by a row of vaulted portico bays accented with white and pink marble voussoirs. The avlu is notable as the first example in Ottoman architecture of the use of an open-air portico, instead of enclosed galleries, as the surround for a mosque courtyard.

The octagonal marble ablution fountain in the center of the courtyard was donated after the original construction of the complex by Sultan Murat IV (1612-1640 CE / AH 1021-1050). At the center of the east wall of the avlu is a recessed portal leading into the prayer hall, topped by elaborate carved muqarnas.

The mosque's two minarets rise above the northeast and southeast corners of the avlu at the northwest and southwest corners of the prayer hall. The enclosed stairways of the minarets are accessed from small portals on the exterior of the mosque. The shafts of the twin minarets feature ornate decorative sculpture in the form of geometric bas-reliefs and inlaid terracotta panels.

The eastern half of the mosque is the enclosed prayer hall. The prayer hall features a symmetrical, centrally focused plan, as did many of Sinan's mosques. Just as in the portico to the west, the plan of the hall is organized according to a five aisle by five row grid, in which domed bays along the perimeter form a square border around a larger three bay by three bay space at the center. The corner bays are each slightly under eight meters square, while the bays along the center of each wall are approximately twenty-two meters long and eight meters deep.

Four massive pillars are located at the corners of the large central bay, whose interior spans nineteen meters square. The pillars each measure close to five meters square to provide support for the massive arches that frame the edges of the central bay. These four arches are flanked by semi-domes that cover the central bays along each wall of the prayer hall. The four arches also provide support for a nineteen-meter-wide dome that springs from pendentives over the center of the prayer hall.

The central dome rises to a maximum height of thirty-seven meters, suggesting a spherical space in section. Three-meter-deep galleries line the exteriors of the north and south walls to conceal large buttresses that provide additional structural support for the heavy central dome.

The interior is primarily of white stone, with polychrome Iznik tile work in radial geometric patterns at the centers of each dome and semi-dome of the ceiling, as well as within triangular panels on the squinches and pendentives. The voussoirs are finished in a pattern of alternating red and white stones to draw attention to the large arches supporting the roof. A large circular iron chandelier is suspended from the central dome above the red carpeted floor. The mihrab niche is surmounted by muqarnas and surrounded by large stained-glass windows.

Entrances to the prayer hall are located at the center of its north, west, and south walls, while the mihrab niche occupies the center of the east qibla wall. The minbar is located four meters to the south of the mihrab niche along the qibla wall. As the four pillars at the center of the support much of the load of the domed roof structure, the exterior walls have relatively little load to bear and thus are highly perforated to allow generous sunlight. Sinan revised this simple plan in his later imperial mosques to allow the support piers to be better integrated with the exterior walls of the prayer hall and thus less isolated near its center.

Though tabhanes were often directly attached to mosques later in Ottoman period, the tabhane at the Şehzade complex is a freestanding structure located to the east of the madrasa and north of the mosque, mausolea, and gardens. The tabhane is composed of a series of domed chambers designed to house pious travelers during short visits to the mosque. The tabhane is subdivided into three sections; the western and central sections are identical, while the larger eastern section features a unique interior organization and an adjacent trapezoidal courtyard.

The enclosed portion of the eastern section is composed of two aisles of domed bays, each four rows deep. The sections to the west are each subdivided into thirds, with two small domed chambers to both the east and west of a larger central domed space. The tabhane measures between sixty-two and sixty-seven meters wide east to west and between thirteen and twenty-four meters long north to south.

The complex is interrupted by Dede Efendi Street to the east of the tabhane and mausolea, and though the complex's perimeter wall creates a solid boundary along the street-edge, a hospice and elementary school affiliated with the mosque were constructed directly across the narrow street. The hospice is rectangular with a large central courtyard, measuring approximately twenty-five meters wide east to west and fifty-six meters long north to south. The elementary school is located adjacent and to the south of the hospice, a small square domed structure measuring ten meters to a side.

Opposite the elementary school, a small break in the complex perimeter wall allows entry to the gardens north of the mausolea. There is a second entrance opening to the courtyard of the tabhane, opposite the entrance to the hospice. The perimeter wall is further perforated to the east and south of the mausolea and to the south and west of the mosque in order to permit diverse points of entry to the complex, with no apparent primary gateway.

Mosque
The mosque has an area of 38 x 38 meters with a central dome that was constructed on four big columns. The dome has a diameter of 19 meters and a depth of 53 meters. The central dome was supported by four half-domes. The mosque has two minarets with two sherefes (minaret balcony) each with ornamentation and decoration pretty far from the architectural simplicity of that period. The nine domes of the mosque which encircle the courtyard have the same dimensions and the same height and form a symmetric unity with the fountain located in the middle of the complex.

Evliya Chelebi (1611-1684), the famous 17th century Ottoman traveler and writer, stated that the dome of the fountain had been built by Sultan Murad IV and praised the architect Sinan, due to the decoration of the minarets.

The mosque is located in the center of the complex. It is surrounded by a courtyard and contains an inner courtyard as well. In the middle of the interior courtyard is a domed reservoir used for ablutions. The minarets are found where the walls of the courtyard and mosque meet. The two minarets each have twin galleries and are unique in Istanbul due to their exterior ornamentation.

The main dome of the mosque rests on four elephant legs. The most striking of the structures within the mosque are the pulpit, niche and müezzin gallery. The medresse, primary school, soup kitchen and hospital are found to the north of the complex and were built in such a way as to constitute a courtyard wall.

The mosque is located at the center of the walled site, surrounded by gardens and pathways leading to other buildings within the complex. The mosque is accessible from the north, south, and west via five primary entrances; three portals open into the avlu and two into the prayer hall. The qibla wall forms the eastern elevation of the mosque.

The interior of the Şehzade Mosque has a symmetrical plan, with the area under the central dome expanded by use of four semidomes, one on each side, in the shape of a four leaf clover. This technique was not entirely successful, as it isolated the four huge piers needed to support the central dome, and was never again repeated by Sinan. The interior of the mosque has a very simple design, without galleries.

Because there is no column or wall dividing the interior of the mosque measuring 40.58 x 40.43 m, the view of the mosque is more attractive. The mosque was restored in 1616 after the fire of 1613. The two minarets, 41.5 m in height, having elaborate geometric decorations, were damaged during the fires of 1718 and 1722. The dome, 24 windows, is supported by four piers through large arches, and has a diameter of 18.7 m and it is 37 meters high.

The mosque’s courtyard is surrounded by a portico with 16 domes and 12 columns. It was in this building that Sinan first adopted the technique of placing colonnaded galleries along the entire length of the north and south facades in order to conceal the buttresses. The fountain, in the center, was built during the reign of Sultan Murat IV (1623 - 1640).

The mosque is surrounded by an inner colonnaded courtyard (avlu) with an area equal to that of the mosque itself. The courtyard is bordered by a portico with five domed bays on each side, with arches in alternating pink and white marble. At the center is an ablution fountain (şadırvan), which was a later donation from Sultan Murat IV. The two minarets have elaborate geometric sculpture in low bas-relief and occasional terracotta inlays.

The mosque itself has a square plan, covered by a central dome, flanked by four half-domes. The dome is supported by four piers, and has a diameter of 19 meters and it is 37 meters high. It was in this building that Sinan first adopted the technique of placing colonnaded galleries along the entire length of the north and south facades in order to conceal the buttresses.

The plan of the mosque is composed of two adjacent squares, each measuring forty-two meters to a side. The western half of the mosque forms an avlu, a square central courtyard surrounded by a row of vaulted portico bays accented with white and pink marble voussoirs. The avlu is notable as the first example in Ottoman architecture of the use of an open-air portico, instead of enclosed galleries, as the surround for a mosque courtyard.

The octagonal marble ablution fountain in the center of the courtyard was donated after the original construction of the complex by Sultan Murat IV (1612-1640 CE / AH 1021-1050). At the center of the east wall of the avlu is a recessed portal leading into the prayer hall, topped by elaborate carved muqarnas.

The Tombs
There are six mausoleums within the complex, five in an enclosed cemetery and one in the walls of the other court. The tomb of Şehzade Mehmed is one of the finest of them. The imperial mausoleums (türbe) are noted for their lavish use of İznik tiles. The first and largest is the türbe of Şehzade Mehmet, an octagonal structure, with polychrome stonework and terracotta window frames and arches and an opus sectile porch. The double dome is fluted. An inscription in Persian verse over the door gives the date of the Prince's death and suggests that the interior of the türbe is like a garden in Paradise.

The structure is supported by terracotta arches and roofed by a fluted dome. The tomb of Şehzade Mehmed is located at the center of the mausoleum, covered by a walnut baldachin. Openings in the walls allow for stained glass windows on all faces, as well as an entrance portal on the north elevation. A porch featuring inlaid opus sectile stonework leads to the entrance portal, which is surmounted by a commemorative inscription in Persian verse.

The starting year of the construction of the Tomb for Prince Mehmet was 1543 and it was completed in 1544. Walls of the tomb were covered with ceramics, and the windows have stained glass. Other than the tomb of Prince Mehmet, there are the sarcophagus of Cihangir, son of the the Süleyman the Magnificient who passed away in early age just like Prince Mehmet, the sarcophagus of Hümüşah, the daughter of the Süleyman the Magnificient, as well as three unknown sarcophagi in the tomb. Openings in the walls allow for stained glass windows on all faces, as well as an entrance portal on the north elevation.

Also designed by Sinan, the mausoleum of Grand Vizier Rüstem Paşa (1561-62 CE / AH 968-969) and his son were buried is located two meters south of Şehzade Mehmed's mausoleum. Rüstem Pasha was the son-in-law of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. Like the mosque of Rüstem Paşa in Istanbul, the octagonal mausoleum features elaborate Iznik tile work.

The mausoleum of Şehzade Mahmud (d. 1603 CE / AH 1012), located five meters to the southwest of Şehzade Mehmed's structure, is a hexagonal structure measuring three meters to a side. Immediately to its south is the slightly smaller octagonal mausoleum of Seyhülislam Bostanzade Mehmed (d. 1598 CE / AH 1007).

Nine meters to the west, a larger octagonal mausoleum measuring four meters to a side honors Bosnian İbrahim Paşa (d. 1603 CE / AH 1012), Grand Vizier to and son-in-law of Sultan Murat II. Designed by Dalgıç Ahmed Ağa, this mausoleum is almost as large as that of Şehzade Mehmed.

Finally, the baldachin tomb of Şehzade Mehmed's granddaughter Fatma Sultan (1588-1589 CE / AH 996-997) is located ten meters to the east of Mehmed's mausoleum. This small domed square structure measures four meters to a side and is located adjacent to the eastern wall of the complex.

Also in the complex, Hatice Sultan, daughter to Sultan Murat III, Fatma Sultan, Şehzade Mehmet’s grandson, and Destari Mustafa Efendi, who was murdered in 1614, are buried.

Madrasah
It consists of 20 rooms, a bath, and eyvan, a vaulted room with one side open to a court that was used a dormitory for girls after 1950s. The Tabhane, (the hostel attached to a mosque where travelers (usually dervishes and mystics) could live free for three days), was located just like the Madrasah toward the east on the outer wall of courtyard.

This prayer room measures eleven meters to a side, and it projects five meters beyond the line of the exterior wall. The madrasa is accessible from the north via several entrances facing the Valens aqueduct, or by three central entrances along its south wall that face the mosque and mausolea within the Şehzade complex.

In the madrasah of the complex, completed between 1546 and 1547, there are 20 rooms and a classroom. The porticos were covered by glass cases while the madrasah was used as a dormitory for girls in the 1950s. The madrasa is located thirty-seven meters north of the mosque at the northwest corner of the complex. It follows a typical Ottoman organization in which twenty small cells and a second row of vaulted galleries are organized around a large rectangular central courtyard.

Overall, the madrasa measures forty-six meters wide east to west and thirty-two meters long north to south. Its regularity is broken by a square domed prayer room embedded at the center of the eastern wall. This prayer room measures eleven meters to a side, and it projects five meters beyond the line of the exterior wall. The madrasa is accessible from the north via several entrances facing the Valens aqueduct, or by three central entrances along its south wall that face the mosque and mausolea within the Sehzade complex.

The medrese of the Şehzade foundation is on the far side of the precinct, at the north-west corner. It is a handsome building of the usual form. The south side, facing the mosque precinct, has a portico but no cells. Opposite the entrance, instead of the usual dershane, is an open loggia, the lecture hall itself being in the centre of the east side; opposite, a passage between two cells leads to the lavatories.

The building has been well restored and is again in use as a residence for university students. In line with the medrese but farther east is the kervansaray, which now serves as a science laboratory for the adjacent Vefa Lisesi. This building is probably not by Sinan, though obviously contemporary, or nearly so, with the rest of the complex.

It has no door into the mosque precinct but is entered from the other side. It is L-shaped, the bottom stroke of the L consisting of a long, wide hall, its eight domes supported on three columns down its length; perpendicular to this is a block of eight cubicles with two spacious halls giving access to them. This interesting building is in good shape and makes a fine science laboratory.

Sıbyan Mektebi
The building located in the southern part of the Şehzade Complex, sometimes used as the printing house of Istanbul University, was Sıbyan Mektebi, an Ottoman elementary school. The entry porch of the school does not exist today; the window structure has been metamorphosed and the fireplace was removed when it was used as a warehouse.

Primary School
The Primary School, single - domed with a diameter of 7.5 m, measuring 9.5 x 9.5 m, is now used by the Foundation of İstanbul University Political Sciences Graduates

Daruzziyafe
There is another structure called Daruzziyafe (Restaurant, previously a soup kitchen in the 16th century) which consists of three sections and draws the attention of visitors.

Kitchen
The lodging room of the imaret (kitchen) is used as repositories of Vefa High School. The two roomed kitchens, facing a rectangular courtyard, have been devastated day by day due to the squalor and neglect. The hospice is rectangular with a large central courtyard, measuring approximately twenty-five meters wide east to west and fifty-six meters long north to south. Soup kitchen consists of kitchen, dining room, storeroom and cellar.

Tabhane
The Tabhane, (the hostel attached to a mosque where travelers (usually dervishes and mystics) could live free for three days), was located just like the Madrasah toward the east on the outer wall of courtyard. Though tabhanes were often directly attached to mosques later in Ottoman period, the tabhane at the Şehzade complex is a freestanding structure located to the east of the madrasa and north of the mosque, mausolea, and gardens.

The tabhane is composed of a series of domed chambers designed to house pious travelers during short visits to the mosque. The tabhane is subdivided into three sections; the western and central sections are identical, while the larger eastern section features a unique interior organization and an adjacent trapezoidal courtyard.

The enclosed portion of the eastern section is composed of two aisles of domed bays, each four rows deep. The sections to the west are each subdivided into thirds, with two small domed chambers to both the east and west of a larger central domed space. The tabhane measures between sixty-two and sixty-seven meters wide east to west and between thirteen and twenty-four meters long north to south.

The complex is interrupted by Dede Efendi Street to the east of the tabhane and mausolea, and though the complex's perimeter wall creates a solid boundary along the street-edge, a hospice and elementary school affiliated with the mosque were constructed directly across the narrow street.

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NURBANU VALİDEİ ATİK SULTAN MOSQUE COMPLEX

Üsküdar - İstanbul - Turkey

GPS : 41°01'07.8"N 29°01'25.0"E / 41.018833, 29.023611



PHOTOGRAPHS ALBUM

The Atik Valide Mosque (Eski Valide Camii) is an Ottoman mosque located on the hill above a large and densely populated district of Üsküdar, in Istanbul, Turkey. The Atik Valide complex was commissioned by Sultan Selim II (1524-1574) in 1570 for his wife Nurbanu Sultan, and was fully completed by his son, Sultan Murad III (1546-1595) in 1579. Mimar Sinan completed the mosque in 1583, and it was his last major work. Constructed on a site that descends towards the northwest, it consists of three building groups separated by streets and two small, free-standing structures.

Moving from northeast to southwest, the first and the smallest of the three building groups is the dervish hostel (tekke or dergah) on the northeast. The largest building group, located on the southwest, consists of a house for readers of the Koran (darül-kurra), a college of Islamic law (darül-hadis), a hospital with an insane asylum (darüssifa), and a soup kitchen for students (imaret). The imaret is subdivided into a kitchen, a hospice (tabhane) and a caravanserai.

Standing between the tekke and the imaret cluster is the mosque, together with a large fountain courtyard that surrounds it on three sides, and the madrasa, attached to the northwest side of the mosque courtyard. Of the two freestanding structures, the larger is the bathhouse, located on the west of the complex. The smaller is the Quranic school (sibyan mektebi), and it is located southeast of the mosque.

The Atik Valide Sultan bath is a part of Atik Valide Complex, combined of mosque, madrasa, darul-hadis, convent, sıbyanmektebi, public kitchen and bath. It also known as Nurbanu Valide Sultan Hamam, which takes the name from the founder.

Mosque
It has a wide shallow dome which rest on five semidomes, with a flat arch over the entrance portal. The interior is surrounded on three sides by galleries. On the southeast of this building group, the prayer hall sits on a rectangular plan aligned on the northeast-southwest axis. A central dome flanked by five semi-domes tops the central space, and four smaller domes surmount the side bays of the prayer hall.

The prayer hall is fronted by a double portico on its northwest, where it is connected to the fountain courtyard. In the courtyard, four of the thirty-eight surrounding domed bays with pendentives serve as entrances. The entrance on the northwest, which is located in the center of the courtyard wall, leads to a staircase that descends to the madrasa courtyard. Two of the entrances are located within the fifth bay of the southwestern and the northeastern courtyard walls; these entrances lead directly from the bordering streets into the courtyard.

The fourth entrance is southwest of the prayer hall, in the southeast wing of the courtyard wall. Entered through any one of the four entrances, one encounters the fountain in the center of the courtyard, on the qibla axis between the door leading to the madrasa (on the northwest) and the portico of the mosque (on the southeast). Within the double portico of the mosque, the secondary portico is carried over sixteen columns, and surrounds the five-bay primary portico on three sides.

The entrance to the prayer hall through the double portico is emphasized in three ways: articulations in both porticos separate it from the other bays, the primary portico contains a mirror vault rather than a dome, and the secondary portico is distinguished by an arch at the entrance. As one passes through this entry, one sees two mihrab niches (within the primary portico) and the two entrances to the minarets, which are symmetrically placed along the sides of the portal (on the northwest wall of the mosque).

The portal, made entirely of white marble, is highly ornamented with muqarnas carvings. A wooden inscription plate is placed above the entrance, giving the name of Nurbanu Sultan and the date of 1583, which indicates the date of its expansion, rather than its construction date. First completed in 1579 as a single domed structure with a hexagonal drum, the mosque was enlarged during a second phase of construction headed by the architect Davud. During the second phase, the primary portico was not altered, and the secondary portico was enlarged on its northeastern and southwestern ends; the minarets retained their original positions.

Entering through the portal, the main dome, approximately thirteen meters in diameter, sits on six pointed arches. These arches are supported by two freestanding piers and four buttresses that are embedded into the qibla and entrance walls. Unlike the symmetrically placed four semi-domes along the boundary of the rectangular prayer hall, the fifth semi-dome roofs the projecting qibla niche. Rather than a sixth semi-dome to balance the qibla semi-dome, a thick wall containing the entrance portal is located opposite the qibla. The four domes that roof the the (1583) extension of the side bays are each approximately six meters in diameter, and each rests on two arches and the side walls of the prayer hall.

Within the mihrab projection, the mihrab niche is placed between two windows. The narrow galleries surround the prayer hall on three sides and are carried over pointed arches on thirty columns. The prayer hall is lit by a total of a hundred and fourteen windows, eighteen of which pierce the drum of the main dome, while seventy-three open the walls of the prayer hall.

The mosque is unadorned on the exterior, yet its interior is highly ornamented. Iznik tiles featuring floral motifs and Quranic inscriptions are densely clustered around the mihrab niche. Geometrical inlay work, pencil-work, and carved woodwork are also found in the prayer hall. After the mosque was completed, it was again altered ca. 1835, during the reign of Mahmud II. A sultan's platform and a muezzin's platform were added, and the fenestration in the west wall of the prayer hall was reconfigured. The mosque was most recently restored between 1956-1972 by the General Directorate of Religious Endowments.

Tekke
Located on the northeastern edge of the complex, the tekke has a trapezoidal plan. It consists of thirty-five domed cells, fronted by a portico, surrounding a courtyard. The ceremonial hall (tevhidhane) is located in the middle of the northeastern row of cells and is projected on the elevation. The entrance into the tekke is through the cell located on the southern corner. This entrance is articulated with a shallow arch and topped by an inscription. Instead of leading directly into the courtyard, this entrance leads into the bay on its northwest, which in turn adjoins the courtyard.

The courtyard featured an octagonal fountain in its center, of which only the base now remains. Each of the thirty-five cells is entered through an individual door under the portico, which has a wooden pitched roof. On the courtyard side, each cell contains a rectangular window with a circular window above; the exterior walls are unfenestrated. The domes of the cells rest on pendentives.

The tevhidhane is the size of four of its cells, and is topped by a central dome sitting on a dodecagonal drum; the drum is visible on the exterior. Interior squinches enable the transition from the dome to the walls. The dome is flanked by four semi-domes on its corners. The tevhidhane contains fourteen windows and two niches with muqarnas carvings on the northwestern and southeastern walls.

Imaret Group
The imaret has a T-shaped courtyard surrounded by thirteen cells. Roofed by domes with pendentives, the cells have different configurations, following different functions. Each cell is entered through doors located beneath a U-shaped portico supported by fourteen columns. The main kitchen is located southwest of the imaret, and is connected to a narrow rectangular courtyard located between the imaret and the southeastern wing of the caravanserai. This courtyard was used both as a service passage and for distribution of food to the poor.

Within the large southwestern building group, the imaret is located on the southeast side of a large courtyard; the tabhane is located on the northwest side of the courtyard. Southwest of the courtyard is the caravanserai; on its northeast, the courtyard is connected to the street via an ascending staircase. The darül-hadis is located between this staircase and the darül-kurra, which stands on the eastern corner of the building group. The darüssifa, which is a rectangular building with an interior courtyard, is located on the northwest of the cluster; it is attached to the wall of the tabhane.

The main entrance to this group, which carries an inscription above, is found on the southwest side of the group. It leads to a rectangular hall centered between the two wings of the caravanserai. This hall is surmounted by a central dome and two barrel vaults on the sides. Two doors on the northwestern and southeastern walls of this rectangular hall lead to the central courtyards of the symmetrical caravanserai wings. Within these two wings, the courtyards are encircled by rectangular rooms on two stories.

A third gate on the northeast elevation of the hall leads to the tabhane courtyard, which is wrapped by a twenty-nine bay portico topped by domes with pendentives. Within the courtyard, the bay opposite the southwest entrance leads to the staircase that rises the street on the northeast side of the building group. Two barrel-vaulted rooms are found on either side of this staircase; they are located below the rooms of the darül-hadis. On the northwest and southeast sides of the courtyard, two doors connect, respectively, to the tabhane and the imaret.

The imaret has a T-shaped courtyard surrounded by thirteen cells. Roofed by domes with pendentives, the cells have different configurations, following different functions. Each cell is entered through doors located beneath a U-shaped portico supported by fourteen columns. The main kitchen is located southwest of the imaret, and is connected to a narrow rectangular courtyard located between the imaret and the southeastern wing of the caravanserai. This courtyard was used both as a service passage and for distribution of food to the poor.

Darüşşifa
The darüşşifa is a rectangular structure with a central courtyard; its primary entrance is on its northwest. This entrance leads to a rectangular space roofed by domes and aligned on the northeast-southwest axis. The courtyard is encircled by a portico carried over thirty columns. The rooms of the darüşşifa are not identical; they include rectangular rooms with barrel vaults and square planned ones with domes. Some of the rooms of the darüssifa are connected to the hospice on its southeast; these were are used as the hospice baths.

This building group has undergone many changes in program, beginning in the eighteenth century, when it was converted into a prison. The consequent revisions and modifications in the structures have changed their original built characteristics.

The darüşşifa (hospital) building was used for storing tobacco in 1935; then converted into a school called Üsküdar İmam Hatip Lisesi (Religious High School) but the imaret was neglected. The cedar tree within the complex is considered the oldest cedar tree in the whole Middle East. The darüşşifa is a rectangular structure with a central courtyard; its primary entrance is on its northwest. This entrance leads to a rectangular space roofed by domes and aligned on the northeast-southwest axis.

The courtyard is encircled by a portico carried over thirty columns. The rooms of the darüssifa are not identical; they include rectangular rooms with barrel vaults and square planned ones with domes. Some of the rooms of the darüssifa are connected to the hospice on its southeast; these were are used as the hospice baths.

Hospice
The tabhane opposite the imaret is designed in a similar fashion, including the presence of a rectangular courtyard between it and the northwestern wing of the madrasa. The only difference lies in the shapes of their respective courtyards; the hospice courtyard is rectangular, rather than T-shaped.

Madrasa
The madrasah of the complex consists of eighteen rooms and it remained in operation until 1918. While fifteen of the rooms were dedicated to be used by the students, two of them were used by teaching assistants and the latter was reserved for the custodian. The madrasah was renovated between 1960 and 1963. It was a shelter for the homeless for a period of time.

The madrasa, which is attached to the northwest of the mosque courtyard, has a trapezoidal plan that narrows from southwest to northeast. Composed of eighteen cells and a classroom, the madrasa is fronted by a nineteen-bay portico that encircles its courtyard on three sides. Its fenestrated southeastern wall forms the border of and contains an entrance into the mosque fountain courtyard.

The main entrance from the street is located at the south corner of the madrasa. The classroom of the madrasa, located in the middle of the northwestern wall, can be accessed from either entrance. This classroom, which is as large as four of its student cells, is shifted off axis towards the northwest, allowing space for a secondary, three-bay portico in front of the classroom.

Articulation on the main portico highlights the presence of the classroom; in addition, the secondary portico contains a central domed bay flanked by two mirror-vaulted, rectangular bays. One enters through the double portico to view the classroom, which is topped by a dome on an octagonal drum. The classroom has two rows of windows on three sides; its northwestern elevation is left blind for privacy, as the classroom projects northwest, extending over a street. The street is located below the floor level of the madrasa, and this projection is supported by a vault as it passes over the street.

In the madrasa, the student cells, all furnished with stoves, are roofed by domes with pendentives. They are accessed via the doors beneath the portico. Each madrasa cell has one window on the courtyard side and two on the elevation. Inside the portico of the madrasa, all of the nineteen bays are domed, with the exception of the vaulted bays in front of the classroom and the bay at the northeastern end of the portico. An octagonal fountain, whose roof has since vanished, stands in the madrasa courtyard before the entrance to the classroom.

They are accessed via the doors beneath the portico. Each madrasa cell has one window on the courtyard side and two on the elevation. Inside the portico of the madrasa, all of the nineteen bays are domed, with the exception of the vaulted bays in front of the classroom and the bay at the northeastern end of the portico. An octagonal fountain, whose roof has since vanished, stands in the madrasa courtyard before the entrance to the classroom.

Baths
The hamam is built on Eski Topbaşı Road, which also gives another name to the bath, in Üsküdar. Located to the west of the complex, the baths are composed of a symmetrical arrangement of rectangular units along the northeast-southwest axis. Entered from the northeast, the dressing space is connected to the cold rooms. These are roofed in the center by domes with pendentives and on the sides by mirror vaults. The hot rooms, located further to the southwest, are roofed by domes.

The water storage unit is a rectangular, barrel-vaulted structure attached to the southwest side of the hot rooms. Following a period of use as a wood workshop, the bathes were renovated by the General Directorate of Religious Endowments. Today, the dressing spaces house shops.

The bath was built for providing income to the complex; however in many other examples in baths, the bath was sold to a private owner; is not belonging to the Waqf anymore. It is a part of a complex but physically it is independent from the complex. There is no inscription but according to some sources it was built simultaneous with the complex in 1577-79, but according to another sources, it was built in 1583.

The Atik Valide Sultan Bath was known to be in ruins until 1985 and was restored in this year. The hamam is a small one among other Sinan baths. The authenticity is lost by many interventions. Basically, using the place as a carpenter atelier damaged the space. Later interventions, for covering the damaged walls are improper.

Today the bath is a colorful one with lack of original details. The dressing rooms are painted and covered with improper colors and imitative coverings. This causes the loss of bath comprehension. In women part, the original roof in the dressing part is lost and is capped by a reinforced concrete roofing.

Quranic school
The Quranic school is a cubical structure surmounted by a dome with pendentives. Entered through the portal on the north, which was once fronted with a portico, it features windows on all but the north elevation. Converted to a library in the eighteenth century, it was later abandoned. This building group has undergone many changes in program, beginning in the eighteenth century, when it was converted into a prison. The consequent revisions and modifications in the structures have changed their original built characteristics.

Mental Hospital
The first mental hospital in the Ottoman Empire was founded in this complex in the 16th century. From 1865, the kitchen, and the hospital were used as mental hospital until Bakırköy Mental Hospital came into service in 1927. The first doctor of this hospital, which was listed as Toptaşı Bimarhanesi (lunatic asylum), was an Italian Physician named Mongeri.

The hospital building was reserved women patients and the Hadith School was for male patients. While it was being used as a mental hospital, a gramophone was purchased as the listening to music was used in the treatment of patients. After Bakırköy Mental Hospital came into service, patients with leprosy were transferred to the hospital.

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