The larger irony is that in calling for a huge new mosque in the tradition of Sinan, Erdoğan may be missing the more fundamental lesson of the Ottoman architect’s work. As Bruno Taut, the German architect who emigrated to Turkey to flee the Nazis, argued, Sinan was himself a proto-modernist whose ability to create extraordinary beauty from novel engineering had more in common with twentieth-century German functionalism than earlier Islamic architecture. — The New York Review of Books
In a politically analytical article in New York Review of Books, Hugh Eakin examines the power policies of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and his ambitious plan to crystallize the country's image and political agenda via a single building. A large new mosque in classical Ottoman style is planned to crown Istanbul's highest hill. A new mosque that nobody visiting Istanbul will be able to not see. As if the city with many masterpieces of religious buildings yet need another post modern one to refresh Erdogan's political and moral legacy via architecture.
There was an unofficial competition in Turkey with architects and others expressed the absurdity of the plans.
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some would say neo-Ottoman style for a neo-Ottoman Empire. please tell us when our millets have to start sending you bakhsheesh
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