Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City (76 page)

Except for Topkap
ı
Saray
ı
and the unique palace of Ibrahim Pa
ş
a, all other palaces until the nineteenth century, however grand, were built almost entirely of wood and have long since perished in the many fires that have ravaged the city. For the seaside mansions (yal
ı
) along the Bosphorus, a few of which still survive, see the description of the K
ı
br
ı
sl
ı
Yal
ı
.

In Turkish architecture there are no “orders” as these are understood in the West, and how this did infuriate the classically minded travellers in the old days: it was chiefly on this ground that as late as the eighteenth century they kept making such remarks as “the Turks know nothing of architecture,” even though they often greatly admired the building they were describing! Nevertheless in the great period there were two recognized types of capital: the stalactite and the lozenge
.
The stalactite is an elaborate geometrical structure chiefly of triangles and hexagons built up so that it resembles a stalactite formation or a honeycomb. It is directly derived from Selçuk architecture and is used not only for capitals but often for portal canopies, cornices, and even pendentives and squinches. The lozenge capital, apparently introduced by Sinan or anyhow not much used before his time, is a simple structure of juxtaposed lozenges. Neither capital is very satisfactory compared with the Doric, Ionic or Corinthian, because both, especially the lozenge, give a too-smooth, weak transition from the cylinder of the column to the square of the impost. In the baroque period bad imitations of western types of capitals came into vogue, almost always hopelessly weak. And until the baroque period all Turkish arches had been not round like Roman ones but pointed like the Gothic, and sometimes of the ogive or “broken” type that is often so effectively used by Sinan. It should also be noted that the Turkish dome resembles the hemispherical Roman, Byzantine and Syrian type, not the more common western ovoid type invented by Brunelleschi, which is structurally double: even when Turkish domes are double, as in some türbes, each dome is structurally independent of the other.

Of decoration applied to architecture, far and away the most brilliant and striking is the Turkish tiles. It was not until fairly recent years that the full importance and uniqueness of the Turkish wares were recognized: they used often to be called Rhodian ware or else lumped together with Persian pottery. Even though the potters were sometimes Persian – as well as Greek, Armenian and Turkish – the tiles were altogether different from Persian ware. They were manufactured chiefly at Iznik but also sometimes at Kütahya and Istanbul. In Istanbul chiefly three periods of Turkish ceramics are represented. In the early period from the Conquest to the mid-sixteenth century we find extremely plain tiles without design, deep blue or a lighter green or turquoise, usually hexagonal and sometimes overlaid with an unfired pattern in gold. More interesting are the tiles in the
cuerda seca
technique: instead of a painted design covered by a transparent glaze, in these tiles the glazes themselves were coloured and the colours were prevented from running into each other by a hair-like dividing line of permanganate of potash outlining the design (hence the name
cuerda seca
, dry cord); if visible at all this line is deepest purple or black. The predominating colours of these tiles are apple-green and bright yellow with subordinate blues and mauves. They are very beautiful and very rare in Istanbul: see the description of the
Ş
ehzade’s türbe and of the porch of Çinili Kö
ş
k where the most extensive examples occur.

About 1550 this lovely technique gave place to the no less beautiful and more famous Iznik style, where the design is painted on the clay and covered with an absolutely transparent glaze. Here the predominant colours are on the purest, most unblemished white ground, deep blue, light blue, shades of green, and above all the matchless tomato red. This was made with a clay known as Armenian bole, found near Erzurum in eastern Anatolia. It has to be laid on very thick so that it protrudes from the surface of the tile like sealing-wax. The technique of using it successfully is extremety tricky and was only completely mastered towards 1570 and lost again about 1620, so that the absolutely perfect tiles of this type are confined to this half century. In tiles before and after this date the bole tends to be a bit muddy and brownish and lacking in clear outline. But at their best the Turkish tiles between about 1550 and 1650 are quite incomparable, and unique.

After this the tiles, like most other things in the Empire, began to decline. A short revival was made about 1720 when the last of the Iznik potters were settled at Tekfur Saray in Istanbul, but this hardly outlasted the first generation. Thereafter inferior European tiles or even more inferior imitations of them became the vogue. There has been a considerable and praiseworthy revival of the old style in our own day, so that really good modern tiles (now made at Kütahya and Iznik) are sometimes hard to distinguish, at first glance, from the great ones.

S
İ
NAN’S EXTANT WORKS IN ISTANBUL

The following is, as far as we are aware, the first chronological list of Sinan’s surviving buildings to be attempted. It is intended to be complete as far as buildings in Istanbul are concerned; but buildings not in the
Tezkeret-ül Ebniye
are excluded unless they form parts of külliyes or other buildings which are in the
Tezkere
, or unless there is other unimpeachable documentary evidence for them; also excluded are a certain number of buildings originally constructed by Sinan, but so completely reconstructed at a later date as to contain little or nothing of his work: such, for example, are Kas
ı
m Pa
ş
a Camii and Cihangir Camii, and a few others. The list may have minor omissions or inaccuracies, almost inevitable in a pioneer attempt, but we believe it includes all Sinan’s surviving buildings of any importance in the city.

The great majority of Sinan’s works can be dated accurately by historical inscriptions on the buildings themselves; others may be dated by documents in the Divan archives or by their vakfiyes (charters of foundation). A few dates in the list are conjectural, based either on descriptions by foreign travellers or on the
floruit
, or else the date of death of the founders. In a very few cases we have not been able to suggest a date. For the
Tezkeret-ül Ebniye
, the list of Sinan’s works drawn up by his friend Mustafa Sa’i, we have used the text as given in Ahmet Refik’s
Mimar Sinan
(Istanbul 1931); the text given in R
ı
fk
ı
Melül Meriç’s
Mimar Sinan Hayat
ı
, Eseri
(Ankara 1965) is a mere conflation of various undated and unidentified manuscripts and is exceedingly misleading. For the relevant Divan archives see Ahmet Refik’s
Türk Mimarlar
ı
(Istanbul 1936); and for various vakfiyes and other documents see Ibrahim Hakk
ı
Konyal
ı
’s
Mimar Koca Sinan
(Istanbul 1948) and the same author’s
Koca Mimar Sinan’
ı
n Eserleri
(Istanbul 1950).