Ottoman architecture
As Ottoman architecture of the generic term for the architecture of the Ottoman Empire (ca. 1300-1923 ) in its core area, the Balkans ( Rumelia ) and Asia Minor (Anatolia). However, a single architecture style did not exist, although the two regions (now Istanbul) were marked by the representative and monumental buildings in the capital Constantinople Opel. Significant Ottoman buildings have been preserved in the former capitals of Edirne and Bursa, and in the centers of Ottoman culture in the Balkans ( in Skopje, Sarajevo, Sofia, etc.). The architecture of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire (eg, Palestine, Egypt) is usually not added.
While the Seljuk ancestors of the Ottomans hans ( caravanserais ) and madrasahs are among the most important buildings in the Ottoman mosque all other types of buildings across the road was superior. Since we preserved houses, mostly from 19th, seldom come from the 18th century, we know relatively little about the housing of earlier eras. A veritable museum of architecture, on the other hand, the Topkapi complex in Istanbul, each prevailing between the 16th and 19th century Ottoman Sultan gazebo (or Rest of building ) has added, so the Topkapi Sarayi rather an organically grown rule complex as a " palace " in the European sense. Noteworthy are also the Ottoman fountain ( çeşme ) and water dispenser ( Sebil ), the win was in the 18th century as independent works of art, no longer as mere objects of use, important.
Development and flowering of the Ottoman religious architecture
As heyday of Ottoman architecture is generally considered the 16th century. Here, the expansion time of the empire falls under Süleyman the Magnificent, together with the work of the architect Sinan genius. Generally referred to as the greatest Ottoman architect, Sinan is also one of the few whose name is known. While in the past centuries, especially in the 14th, much has been experimented, the 16th century is regarded as the " classic era " of Ottoman architecture. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, was the Byzantine Hagia Sophia frequently ( and deliberately) to the model for the representative buildings of the 16th and later centuries (such as Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Selimiye in Edirne ). In the provinces the architecture is notably reduced, but shines by harmonious proportions.
The basic elements of the "classical " Ottoman mosque is the prayer room, always a cube, where a dome is placed. Vorgebaut the entrance is a portico, covered with several slightly pointed arches, and with the same number of smaller domes. Links of the portico is the minaret, which in Ottoman variant - unlike in the Arab or Persian room - always is a sleek, high " pencil Minaret ". Only the Sultan mosques have two or more minarets. The ornament is mainly focused on several parts of the mosque. Outside these are the portal, usually framed and sculpted into the stone or marble details, inside the Mecca -facing prayer niche ( mihrab ) and the carved wooden pulpit ( minber ). Also the cleaning wells Şadırvan were decorated centrally and often abundant in the Ottoman architecture.
The interior of the dome and other surfaces inside are furthermore often painted with abstract, geometric ornaments, but rarely Full coverage. In the late period - ie, in the 18th and 19th centuries - the mural is finally fed greater significance, and plant -like - proliferating ornament, partly with the Baroque borrowed motifs, is inside the mosques - in the provinces also partly on the outer walls (z. example, in the " Colorful mosques " in Tetovo and Travnik, or Bairakli Mosque in Samokov ) - to find. Although the late Ottoman mosques more playful Bauplastikelemente include in their repertoire, but it is not until recently, shaken to the basic idea of the Ottoman mosque, the domed cube, which distinguishes it from other architectural styles of the Islamic world.
In European art history of Ottoman architecture continues to be hardly necessary space. This depends on the one hand to the fact that Europeans, the Ottoman mosque long for a little alone derivative of Byzantine architecture, particularly the Hagia Sophia, considered; other hand, the fact that the Ottoman architecture has been agreed with their more sober facade design, repetition and self-reference the artistic creativity ( "Engineering Aesthetics" ). The experts, however, less able to find surprises in the overall character as in detail. The mosques of the Late Period, at least since the Nuruosmaniye Mosque (1748-1756), however approach already strong Western aesthetics, and even the facades at the time of the so-called Ottoman Baroque moving and playful; a change that will culminate in buildings such as the eye-catching Nusretiye Mosque ( 1820 ), before the architecture of Tanzimatzeit (after 1839) then is actually as part of the European mainstream, albeit with local peculiarities, to look at. The taboo lush, sculptural facades is finally broken the mid-19th century, and styles of European art ( Baroque, Gothic, Neoclassicism, etc.) mingle with local substrate to a hybrid eclecticism (eg mosques in Ortaköy, Aksaray, Yıldız; Dolmabahce and Ciragan palaces on the Bosphorus; wooden filigree coast Villas ( Yali ) on the Bosphorus, etc.).