Nusretiye Mosque is an ornate

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

located in

Tophane Tophane () is a quarter in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, Turkey, running downhill from Galata to the shore of the Bosphorus where it joins up with Karaköy to the southwest and Fındıklı to the northeast. In the Ottoman era, it was the ...

district of Beyoğlu,

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

. It was built in 1823–1826 by Sultan Mahmut II.

Historical background

The mosque was commissioned by Mahmud II and built between 1822 and 1826 in the Tophane neighbourhood. Its name commemorates the "victory" which Mahmud II won by destroying the Janissaries in 1826, the year of the mosque's completion. Mahmud II also built a new artillery barracks and parade ground near the mosque at the same time, replacing the barracks which had been built on this site by his predecessor Selim III and which had been recently destroyed by the Janissaries. This continued Tophane's association with the age of reforms initiated by Selim III. Sometime between 1835 and 1839 Mahmud II erected what is now the oldest clock tower in Istanbul, the Tophane Clock Tower, near the mosque. The tower was rebuilt in more monumental form by Abdülmecit in 1848 or 1849.

Architecture

The mosque is the first major imperial work by Krikor Balian, from the prominent Balian family of Armenian-Ottoman architects. It is sometimes described as belonging to the

Empire style The Empire style (, ''style Empire'') is an early-nineteenth-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts, representing the second phase of Neoclassicism. It flourished between 1800 and 1815 durin ...

, but is considered by scholar Godfrey Goodwin and

Doğan Kuban Doğan Kuban (10 April 1926 – 22 September 2021) was a Turkish architectural historian. Biography Kuban was born in Paris to a Kurdish family. He received his bachelor's degree in architecture from Istanbul Technical University (ITU). Shortly ...

as one of the last

Ottoman Baroque Ottoman Baroque architecture was a period in Ottoman architecture in the 18th century and early 19th century which was influenced by European Baroque architecture. Preceded by the changes of the Tulip Period, the style marked a significant departu ...

mosques. Ünver Rüstem describes the style as moving away from the Baroque and towards an Ottoman interpretation of Neoclassicism. Goodwin also describes it as the last in a line of late imperial mosques that started with the

Nuruosmaniye Mosque The Nuruosmaniye Mosque ( tr, Nuruosmaniye Camii) is an 18th-century Ottoman mosque located in the Çemberlitaş neighbourhood of Fatih district in Istanbul, Turkey. In 2016 it was inscribed in the Tentative list of World Heritage Sites in Turke ...

in the 18th century. The mosque follows the model of Selim III's imperial mosque in

Üsküdar Üsküdar () is a large and densely populated district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphorus. It is bordered to the north by Beykoz, to the east by Ümraniye, to the southeast by Ataşehir and to the south by Kadıköy; ...

, as seen in some of its details and in the portico and double-winged imperial pavilion fronting the mosque. The mosque was innovative in other details such as the greater use of vaults and stairways, the use of wood instead of stone for elements like stairs, and in the decoration of the dome where the traditional circular

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

inscription is replaced with a vegetal foliate motif. Despite its relatively small size the mosque's tall proportions creates a sense of height, which may the culmination of a trend that began with the Ayazma Mosque. From the outside, the mosque's most notable details are the extreme slenderness of its minarets and its two

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

-style sebils which have flamboyantly undulating surfaces. File:Nusretiye mosque 8499.jpg, Front porch and stairs at the mosque entrance File:Nusretiye mosque 1530 (1).jpg, Side view of the mosque File:Nusretiye mosque 8490.jpg, Nusretiye Mosque seen from (then) Istanbul Modern museum File:Nusretiye mosque 8496.jpg, Detail of the dome File:Nusretiye mosque 1530 (2).jpg, Sebil of the mosque File:Nusretiye mosque 1530.jpg, Detail of sebil File:Nusretiye mosque 6173.jpg, The mosque seen from Tophane (from the main street) File:Nusretiye mosque 8495.jpg, Tophane Clock Tower

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