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Ortaköy Mosque

Ortaköy Mosque

Garabet Balyan & Nikoğos Balyan

Photo: A.Savin · FAL · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Istanbul, Turkey
Client / Owner
Sultan Abdülmecid I
Year
Completed 1856
Access
Public
Typology
Spiritual

Garabet Balyan and his son Nikoğos Balyan, who also designed Dolmabahçe Palace, built the mosque for Sultan Abdülmecid I. A small mosque of 1720 on the site was ruined in 1731. Sources give completion between 1853 and 1856, and the article does not settle the date.

The article calls the style Ottoman and eclectic, mixing European Revivalist trends such as Neoclassicism with earlier Ottoman Baroque. The square prayer hall has a single dome and two rows of windows, and the facades carry engaged columns and carved stone reliefs. Two slim stone minarets stand on the front, with balconies resembling Corinthian capitals.

The 1960s brought a cracked brick dome and a leaning building, and it was rebuilt with a concrete dome and reopened in 1969. A restoration from 2011 to 2014 cost almost 7 million liras, and the mosque reopened on June 6, 2014.

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