Architecture

Few countries hold as many layers of architecture as Turkey. Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks and Ottomans all built on the same hills. So you can often read three of them in one walk.

Start with the dome. Hagia Sophia, finished in 537, held the record for a thousand years. Then, in the 16th century, Mimar Sinan answered it with the Süleymaniye in Istanbul. Later came the Selimiye in Edirne, whose dome is almost the same size.

Water shaped the city too. The Valens Aqueduct still strides across the old city on Roman arches from 373. Sinan also built the Mağlova Aqueduct for Suleiman. Its two tiers of arches now stand in a reservoir north of the city.

Smaller buildings show the same architecture at a human scale: the tiled interior of the Rüstem Pasha Mosque, the courtyard houses of Kaleiçi and the stone mansions of Mardin. The UNESCO listing for Istanbul covers many of them. So the rules on restoration are strict, and the details survive.