Architecture for a New Age

The eighteenth century saw the Ottoman capital Istanbul undergo some of its most significant physical changes. Restored as the seat of government in 1703 after the court had spent fifty years in Edirne, the city became the site of lavish architectural patronage intended to reinscribe the sultans' presence. This campaign culminated in the years 1740-1800 with two distinct but related developments: the revival of the imperial mosque as a building type, and the creation of a new architectural style--the so-called Ottoman Baroque--informed by Western models. Though these shifts have typically been viewed within a well-established decline paradigm branding the material decadent and derivative, this study demonstrates that the eighteenth-century mosques were powerful symbols of sultanic authority designed to reassert and redefine the empire's standing on a changing world stage.