Sultanahmet Mosque, or the Blue Mosque, from the courtyard. All the domes and half domes lead up to the central dome, 141 feet high. The mosque was built in the early 17th Century across the Hippodrome from Hagia Sophia. Hagia Sophia is about 1100 years older than the Blue Mosque.
View of the mosque from the inner courtyard. The door above is one of many sets that are all around the courtyard. It is made of many jointed panels. Makes our typical six-panel doors look pretty amateurish. The little fountain in the courtyard seemed pretty undersized to me.
There are four huge round fluted pillars that hold the mosque up. Obviously any has to have something structural to hold the roof up, but these pillars to me detracted from the overall design. They do the job, like poles holding up a tent, but architecturally, to me, they detracted. A large gothic cathedral, by comparison, for all its ponderous bulk, is ingeniously light looking. The weight-bearing structures are certainly visible, but the flying buttresses are outside and hold up the central gallery invisably (at least from the inside). Look at a picture of the fan vaulting at King's College Chapel in Cambridge for a look at what we might call the unbearable lightness of stone. Anyway, it struck me as the difference between a pole tent and an umbrella tent, for those of you camping aficionados -- one has the pole inside, one is suspended from an outside frame.
These last three are of the tiles mostly. The photo just above has part of the metal circular framing that holds up all the electric lights, which you can see in the photos above. Tulips were everywhere in Istanbul, and the two Turks who I asked about it said Holland imported their tulips from them. I haven't researched it, but it sounds plausible. A large number of the tiles in the Blue Mosque have a tulip motif. The two trivet-size tiles I brought home with me have tulip motifs. Some of the tiles I posted pictures of earlier from the Topkani Palace have tulips. Pretty conclusive, I'd say.
Sultanahmet Mosque, or the Blue Mosque, from the courtyard. All the domes and half domes lead up to the central dome, 141 feet high. The mosque was built in the early 17th Century across the Hippodrome from Hagia Sophia. Hagia Sophia is about 1100 years older than the Blue Mosque. 
View of the mosque from the inner courtyard. The door above is one of many sets that are all around the courtyard. It is made of many jointed panels. Makes our typical six-panel doors look pretty amateurish. The little fountain in the courtyard seemed pretty undersized to me. 
There are four huge round fluted pillars that hold the mosque up. Obviously any has to have something structural to hold the roof up, but these pillars to me detracted from the overall design. They do the job, like poles holding up a tent, but architecturally, to me, they detracted. A large gothic cathedral, by comparison, for all its ponderous bulk, is ingeniously light looking. The weight-bearing structures are certainly visible, but the flying buttresses are outside and hold up the central gallery invisably (at least from the inside). Look at a picture of the fan vaulting at King's College Chapel in Cambridge for a look at what we might call the unbearable lightness of stone. Anyway, it struck me as the difference between a pole tent and an umbrella tent, for those of you camping aficionados -- one has the pole inside, one is suspended from an outside frame. 
These last three are of the tiles mostly. The photo just above has part of the metal circular framing that holds up all the electric lights, which you can see in the photos above. Tulips were everywhere in Istanbul, and the two Turks who I asked about it said Holland imported their tulips from them. I haven't researched it, but it sounds plausible. A large number of the tiles in the Blue Mosque have a tulip motif. The two trivet-size tiles I brought home with me have tulip motifs. Some of the tiles I posted pictures of earlier from the Topkani Palace have tulips. Pretty conclusive, I'd say.
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