Mimar Sinan
Ottoman architect and civil engineer
1489 CE to 1588 CE
Koca Mi'mâr Sinân Âğâ ("Sinan the Architect") (c. 1489/1490 – July 17, 1588) is the chief Ottoman architect (Turkish: mimar) and civil engineer for sultans Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II, and Murad III.
He is responsible for the construction of more than three hundred major structures and other more modest projects, such as his Islamic primary schools (sibyan mektebs).
His apprentices will later design the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul, Stari Most in Mostar, and help design the Taj Mahal in the Mughal Empire.
The son of a stonemason, he received a technical education and becomed a military engineer.
He rises rapidly through the ranks to become first an officer and finally a Janissary commander, with the honorific title of ağa.
He refines his architectural and engineering skills while on campaign with the Janissaries, becoming expert at constructing fortifications of all kinds, as well as military infrastructure projects, such as roads, bridges and aqueducts.
At about the age of fifty, he is appointed as chief royal architect, applying the technical skills he has acquired in the army to the "creation of fine religious buildings" and civic structures of all kinds.
He remains in this post for almost fifty years.
His masterpiece is the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, although his most famous work is the Suleiman Mosque in Istanbul.
He headsan extensive governmental department and trains many assistants who, in turn, distinguishe themselves, including Sedefkar Mehmed Agha, architect of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.
He is considered the greatest architect of the classical period of Ottoman architecture and has been compared to Michelangelo, his contemporary in the West.
Michelangelo and his plans for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome are well known in Istanbul, since Leonardo da Vinci and he had been invited, in 1502 and 1505 respectively, by the Sublime Porte to submit plans for a bridge spanning the Golden Horn.
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Mimar Sinan, a Greek Orthodox Christian by birth, had been conscripted at twenty in 1512 under the devshirme system.
Sinan had grown up helping his father, a stonemason and carpenter by the name of Christos, in his work, and by the time that he was conscripted would have had a good grounding in the practicalities of building work.
Sent to Constantinople to be trained as an officer of the Janissary Corps and converted to Islam, hewas too old to be admitted to the imperial Enderun School in the Topkapı Palace but was sent instead to an auxiliary school.
Some records claim that he might have served the Grand Vizier Pargalı İbrahim Pasha as a novice of the Ibrahim Pasha School.
Possibly, he was given the Islamic name Sinan there.
He initially learned carpentry and mathematics but through his intellectual qualities and ambitions, he soon assisted the leading architects and got his training as an architect.
During the next six years, he had also trained to be a Janissary officer (acemioğlan).
He possibly joined Selim I in his last military campaign, Rhodes, according to some sources, but when the Sultan died, this project ended.
Two years later he witnessed the conquest of Belgrade.
Under the new sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, he had been present, as a member of the Household Cavalry, at the Battle of Mohács.
He was promoted to captain of the Royal Guard and then given command of the Infantry Cadet Corps.
He was later stationed in Austria, where he commanded the 62nd Orta of the Rifle Corps.
He became a master of archery, while at the same time, as an architect, learning the weak points of structures when gunning them down.
In 1535 he had participated in the Baghdad campaign as a commanding officer of the Royal Guard.
In 1537 he had gone on expeditions to Corfu and Apulia and Moldavia.
During these campaigns he has proved himself an able architect and engineer.
During the campaign in the East, he had assisted in the building of defenses and bridges, such as a bridge across the Danube.
He has converted churches into mosques.
During the Persian campaign in 1535 he had built ships for the army and the artillery to cross Lake Van.
For this he had been given the title Haseki'i, Sergeant-at-Arms in the body guard of the Sultan, a rank equivalent to that of the Janissary Ağa.
When Chelebi Lütfi Pasha becomes Grand Vizier in 1539, he appoints Sinan, who had previously served under his command, to the office of Architect of the Abode of Felicity.
This is the start of a remarkable career.
The job entails the supervision infrastructure construction and the flow of supplies within the Ottoman Empire.
He is also responsible for the design and construction of public works, such as roads, waterworks and bridges.
Through the years he transforms his office into that of Architect of the Empire, an elaborate government department, with greater powers than his supervising minister.
He becomes the head of a whole Corps of architects, training a team of assistants, deputies and pupils.
Sinan is primarily concerned with the solution of the spatial problems inherent in flanking the central domes of mosques with minor domes in order to extend the breadth of the principal hall.