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Laleli Mosque
Laleli mosque was built by Sultan Mustafa III from 1760–1763 . The architect who designed it is an Ottoman imperial architect called Mehmet Tahir Aga . The mosque was constructed in a baroque style . It was built over a complex of vaulted shops , whose rents were intended to financially support the mosque . There is a great hall underneath the mosque structure itself which is supported by eight enormous pillars with a fountain in the center . The mosque is oriented along a northwest-southeast axis . The courtyard is rectangular in plan and is about double the size of the prayer hall . It has a continuous arcade with eighteen domed bays and a fountain in middle . The building has a brick and masonry base , with a masonry superstructure . Two minarets rise on the sides of the courtyard entrances at either end of the portico . On the interior side , the walls have colorful variegated marbles in red , blue , yellow and brown , and decorated with medallions in opus sectile using also semi-precious onyx and jaspers . Precious marbles richly decorate the mihrab and mimbar . Light enters the mosque through the numerous windows in addition to reflections from the inside white and stained glass . The dome measures 12 . 50 meters in diameter . It rises 24 . 50 meters on an octagonal drum of eight arches , with supporting semi-domes at the corner arches and larger semi-domes joining the arches above the mihrab and the central bay of the narthex . The other structures of the complex of Laleli Mosque (kulliye) have mostly collapsed over the years of which only exists an octagonal domed turbe which is facing Ordu Street . It contains the graves of Mustafa III , his wife Mihrisah Sultan , son Selim III and daughters Hibetullah and Fatma Sultan and Mihrimah Sultan . |
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