Muzaffer Ozgules: Sinan’s Sculptural Architecture in Istanbul

What was Old is New Again. A Meeting of Art and Scholarship |
Conference


Fri, 21.11.2008 – Sun, 23.11.2008


Although Islam has prohibited sculpturing, the grand master of
all Ottoman architects, namely Sinan, was able to surmount this
ban skillfully. He regarded the limitations as a challenge for
his creativeness. During his half a century long career as the
chief architect of Ottoman Empire, he transformed bridges,
aqueducts, small buildings, and grandiose complexes into enduring
monuments. The aesthetics of these works went far beyond his
contemporaries and his predecessors. Architecture was the
language he used to express, not only the religious believes, but
also his artistic creativity. By the end of the 16th century,
Istanbul, where he gave most of his works, became “Sinan’s
Istanbul”. This paper aims to reveal the art and science that is
the essence of his achievement.


Every religion, political ideology, philosophy, and scientific
theory embodies a set of structured beliefs. These belief systems
maintain a symbiotic liaison with the arts. Throughout history,
communal beliefs have relied on music, theater, painting, and
dance in order to propagate accepted doctrines, and the arts in
turn have shaped the articles of faith.
The conference brings together artists and scholars in an unusual
forum. The arts addressed deal primarily with media, the major
art form that has only come to the fore in recent decades. The
scholarship concerns antique matters, such as Sumerian music,
early Egyptian medicine, and the omens, codes of law, and
creation myths of Mesopotamia. The divergent perspectives of the
participants augur well for innovative ideas emerging from this
close encounter between scholarship, the arts, and the belief
systems of early and modern times.