Hagia Sofia
Istanbul, Turkey
September 28, 2008
Istanbul, Turkey
September 28, 2008
The Hagia Sofia (aka Aya Sofia) is one of the greatest engineering marvels of the ancient world but truthfully it’s not particularly pretty from the outside. Of course a lot of that is attributed to it’s metamorphosis from Church to Cathedral to Mosque to Museum over the last 1600 years. Understandably there was also a fair amount of later buttressing and reinforcement required to keep the massive dome from buckling the walls beneath it. After all a dome of that size had never been attempted before and it was a 1000 years before anyone managed to erect a bigger cathedral (in Sevilla, Spain). Built as part of Emperor Justinian’s building boom to rejuvenate the empire, it must have been a mind-boggling site for a common citizen to be confronted with in that day and age. Even in these jaded times it’s an astonishing work of art and architecture that despite it’s frumpy outside is still a marvel to behold from beneath that enormous dome.
