Hagia Sophia By:Ricardo Dominguez

hagia sophia external pic

The image corresponds to the building that nowadays is  a museum called Hagia Sophia that is localized in Istanbul, Turkey.

Hagia Sophia ( night ) 

This building has a very interesting story, Constantius II inaugurated this building in 360 after Christ, the first usage of the building was to be a church, then that church was destroyed and by orders of Theodosius II rebuilt it in 532, but again it was destroyed and built again by the year 537 and was until 562 when the church passed to be the seat of the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, so the imperial ceremonies were presented there. 

Many years passed and after a siege Constantinople passed to be property of the Ottoman emperor Mehmet II that made it a mosque. And in 1934, the founders of Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk convert it to a museum 

Ok in this church there where two things that cached my attention the first one is that how in one building we can observe the contrasts of two religions together, the Islamic and the Christianity for example in the dome there are Islamic mosaics but Christianity mosaics too.

When the transformation of the church into a mosque was interesting to me too because this changed caused the removal of altars, sacrificial vessels, bells and how I said before they covered the mosaics so if you can imagine the extreme change of the visual things of the church, after seeing these changes the masque inspired the ottomans to build their mesquites for example the blue mosque of Istanbul.

Christianity

The second thing  that for me was interesting was something called Sultan Lodge, that is in Rococo style and is like a chamber not close entirely that helped to avoid a possible assassination  of the current sultan

Sultan Lodge

 

Works Cited

"Hagia Sophia Facts." Lifestyle Lounge. nd. Web. 21 Sept. 2010. <http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/hagia-sophia-facts-3676.html>.

"Hagia Sophia." Hagia Sophia. nd. Web. 21 Sept. 2010. <http://www.hagiasophia.com>.

"Hagia Sophia Pictures Images of Hagia Sophia." Turkish Culture Pics. nd. Web. 21 Sept. 2010. <http://turkishculture.blogspot.com/2005/04/hagia-sophia-pictures-images-of-hagia.html>.