Sinan was the greatest architect of the Ottoman Golden Age – when the Empire reached its zenith of power and magnificence. His style marks the apogee of Turkish art and this volume is a magnificent testament to the achievement of a man who stamped his imprint on an entire culture

Beginning as a military engineer and designer of fortifications, he was appointed Chief Imperial Architect in 1538. While Michelangelo was working on St. Peter’s, Sinan completed the greatest of Turkish mosques, the Süleymaniye and the Selimiye.

Under Süleyman the Magnificent and his successor Selim II, Sinan designed hundreds of buildings: mosques, palaces, tombs, mausolea, hospitals, schools, caravanserai, bridges, aqueducts and baths. As he himself said, ‘with time each edifice became – with the help of Allah and thanks to the generosity and benevolence of the State – the very image of the world in the lands ruled by the Ottoman dynasty.’

In his greatest works he adapted Byzantine and Islamic styles to produce something quite new: a centralized organization of absolute space unhindered by pillars or columns and covered by a soaring dome. An architect of genius in a dynamic new empire expanding into both Asia and Europe, he was a true man of the Renaissance.

Opulent colour photographs, many taken specially by Ara Güler for this publication, pay tribute to the extraordinary space and light of Sinan’s buildings. Texts by the most important specialists in this field complement the handsome visual material and offer new interpretations of Sinan’s art.

John Freely has taught at the University of the Bosporus, Istanbul. He has published many books on Turkey, as well as travel guides and articles on the history of art.

Augusto Romano Burelli, engineer and architect, taught architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice for many years. His particular interests are Sinan, and the architecture of Schinkel, Unger and Behrens in Berlin.

Ara Güler, a member of Magnum Photo Agency, was born and lives in Istanbul. His book Ara Güler’s Istanbul was published by Thames & Hudson in 2009.

思南是十六世纪奥斯曼黄金时代最伟大的建筑师，当奥斯曼帝国达到了权利和辉煌的顶峰，他的风格也标志着土耳其艺术的顶峰。思南设计了数百建筑：清真寺，宫殿，陵墓，陵墓，医院，学校，客栈，桥梁，渡槽和浴场，他的这些作品这本书中都有分析。他最伟大的作品，他改编拜占庭和伊斯兰风格产生一些颇有新意的点子：绝对空间集中的组织，由一飞冲天穹顶由柱子或列和不受阻碍地覆盖。在一个充满活力的新的帝国扩张到亚洲和欧洲的天才建筑师，他是一个文艺复兴时期的真正的建筑师。