DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29899#0582
562
SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE.
Part III.
Externally the mosque suffers, like all the buildings of the capital,
from the badness of the materials with which it is constructed. Its
walls are covered with stucco, its dome with lead, and all the sloping
abutments of the dome, though built with masonry, have also to be
protected by a metal covering. This, no doubt, detracts from the
effect ; but still the whole is so massive—every window, every dome,
every projection, is so truthful, and tells so exactly the purpose for
which it was placed where we find it—that the general result is most
satisfactory, and as impressive an external effect has been produced
with one-half the expense of adornment requisite for a Gothic building
of the same pretensions.
The tomb of the founder, which stands in the garden behind,
avoids these defects. It is built in marble of various colours, and
every detail is most carefully elaborated. It is too small—only 46 ft.
in diameter externally—to produce any grandeur of effect ; but it
suffices to show that the architects of those days were quite competent
to produce satisfactory designs for the exteriors of their buildings, if
they had found appropriate materials in which to execute them.
Next in importance to the Suleimanie, among the Imperial mosques
of Constantinople, is that which the Sultan Ahmed commenced a.d.
1608. The mosque itself is in plan somewhat larger than the pre-
ceding, measuring 235 ft. by 210, and covering nearly 50,000 sq. ft. ;
but it is inferior both in design and in the richness or taste of its
decorations. As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut dSTo. 1000), it
deviates still further than the Suleimanie from the clesign of Sta.
Sophia ; ancl in the exact ratio in which it diverges from that type,
does it fail in producing an artistic effect. Its great defect is, that it
is too mechanically regular. In the nave of Sta. Sophia the propor-
tion of length to breadth is*practically as two-and-a-half to one. In
the Suleimanie it is nearly two to one, but the Ahmedjie is absolutely
square. Without asking for the extreme difference between length
and breadth which prevails in Gothic cathedrals, a design must have
sides—there must be some point towards which the effect tends. In
this mosque, as in the Pantheon at Rome, if the plan were divided
into quarters, each of the four quaclrants would be found to be
identical, and the effect is consequently painfully mechanical and
prosaic. The design of each wall is also nearly the same ; they have
the same number of windows spaced in the same manner, and the
side of the Kibleh is scarcely more richly decorated than the others.
Add to this, that all the windows are glazed with white glass, and
that, above the marble wainscotting, whitewash has been unsparingly
employed, and it will be easy to understand how the mosque fails in
producing the effect which might fairly be expected from its dimen-
sions and the general features of its design. Still, a hall nearly
SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE.
Part III.
Externally the mosque suffers, like all the buildings of the capital,
from the badness of the materials with which it is constructed. Its
walls are covered with stucco, its dome with lead, and all the sloping
abutments of the dome, though built with masonry, have also to be
protected by a metal covering. This, no doubt, detracts from the
effect ; but still the whole is so massive—every window, every dome,
every projection, is so truthful, and tells so exactly the purpose for
which it was placed where we find it—that the general result is most
satisfactory, and as impressive an external effect has been produced
with one-half the expense of adornment requisite for a Gothic building
of the same pretensions.
The tomb of the founder, which stands in the garden behind,
avoids these defects. It is built in marble of various colours, and
every detail is most carefully elaborated. It is too small—only 46 ft.
in diameter externally—to produce any grandeur of effect ; but it
suffices to show that the architects of those days were quite competent
to produce satisfactory designs for the exteriors of their buildings, if
they had found appropriate materials in which to execute them.
Next in importance to the Suleimanie, among the Imperial mosques
of Constantinople, is that which the Sultan Ahmed commenced a.d.
1608. The mosque itself is in plan somewhat larger than the pre-
ceding, measuring 235 ft. by 210, and covering nearly 50,000 sq. ft. ;
but it is inferior both in design and in the richness or taste of its
decorations. As will be seen from the plan (Woodcut dSTo. 1000), it
deviates still further than the Suleimanie from the clesign of Sta.
Sophia ; ancl in the exact ratio in which it diverges from that type,
does it fail in producing an artistic effect. Its great defect is, that it
is too mechanically regular. In the nave of Sta. Sophia the propor-
tion of length to breadth is*practically as two-and-a-half to one. In
the Suleimanie it is nearly two to one, but the Ahmedjie is absolutely
square. Without asking for the extreme difference between length
and breadth which prevails in Gothic cathedrals, a design must have
sides—there must be some point towards which the effect tends. In
this mosque, as in the Pantheon at Rome, if the plan were divided
into quarters, each of the four quaclrants would be found to be
identical, and the effect is consequently painfully mechanical and
prosaic. The design of each wall is also nearly the same ; they have
the same number of windows spaced in the same manner, and the
side of the Kibleh is scarcely more richly decorated than the others.
Add to this, that all the windows are glazed with white glass, and
that, above the marble wainscotting, whitewash has been unsparingly
employed, and it will be easy to understand how the mosque fails in
producing the effect which might fairly be expected from its dimen-
sions and the general features of its design. Still, a hall nearly