The Journal

The Journal

Design & Architecture
turkish architectural styles

Turkish architecture, with its sun-baked stone of Seljuk caravanserais reaching to the soaring domes of Ottoman mosques, offers a legacy as rich and layered as the empire that shaped it. Tracing its roots to the 11th century, it draws influence from Byzantine, Persian, and Arab traditions, but achieved its fullest expression during the Ottoman era. Refined under the genius of Mimar Sinan in the 16th century, classical Ottoman architecture adopted grand central domes, cascading semi-domes, slender minarets, and interiors dressed in hand-painted Iznik tiles and marble.