Ortaköy Mosque

About

Ortakoy Mosque, in Turkish the Ortakoy Camii and formally the Buyuk Mecidiye Camii, the Great Mosque of Sultan Abdulmejid, stands at the edge of the Bosphorus in the Besiktas district of Istanbul. Set beside the Ortakoy pier and beneath the silhouette of the Bosphorus Bridge, it is among the most photographed buildings on the strait.

The present mosque, completed in 1854 or 1856, was commissioned by Sultan Abdulmecid I to replace an earlier mosque of 1720 that had been ruined during the Patrona Halil Uprising of 1731. Its architects were the Armenian father and son Garabet Balyan and Nikogos Balyan, who at the same time were designing the nearby Dolmabahce Palace and Mosque.

The building combines a two-storey imperial apartment for the sultan on a U-shaped plan with a square prayer hall covered by a single dome. The eclectic facades carry stone-carved reliefs and engaged columns drawn from Ottoman Baroque, Neoclassical, and other European Revivalist traditions, while the slender twin minarets rise with Corinthian-style balconies. The dome's interior is painted with trompe-l'oeil frescoes, a feature introduced to Ottoman architecture under Abdulmecid I, and calligraphy by the sultan himself adorns the walls.

Damaged by the 1894 Istanbul earthquake, the mosque was repaired in 1909, when the original fluted minarets were replaced with simpler masonry. The brick dome cracked over time and was rebuilt in concrete after foundation work in the 1960s, and the mosque reopened in 1969. A further restoration by the General Directorate of Foundations was completed in 2014.

History

An earlier mosque on this shore, raised in 1720, was destroyed in the Patrona Halil uprising of 1731. Sultan Abdülmecid I commissioned the present building from the Armenian court architects Garabet and Nikoğos Balyan, who completed it around 1854 to 1856 while also designing the nearby Dolmabahçe Palace and Mosque. Earthquake damage in 1894 and later structural cracking brought repeated repairs, including a full concrete reconstruction of the dome in the 1960s, and a three-year restoration by the General Directorate of Foundations concluded with the mosque's reopening on 6 June 2014.

Significance

The mosque introduced trompe-l'oeil fresco painting to Ottoman religious architecture, and its walls carry calligraphy executed by Sultan Abdülmecid I himself, who was a trained calligrapher. Its eclectic marble facade, blending Ottoman Baroque with Neoclassical Revivalist detailing, remains one of the most photographed points on the Bosphorus, framed today by the bridge that spans the strait behind it.

Architecture

Ottoman Baroque and Neoclassical Revivalist eclectic style, designed by the Balyan family of court architects