I, as a person who is amateurishly interested in religious architecture, wrote here before that Suleymaniye Mosque is my favorite landmark and Kölner Dom is in my Top Three.
As the world discusses minaret bans and the Turkish neo-Ottomanism, I'd like to mention my favorite minarets in Istanbul. As Selimiye Mosque -with its enigmatic minarets which are the longest in Turkey (71 meters)- is in Edirne, I have no option but Ortaköy Mosque.
Ortaköy Camii, or the Grand Imperial Mosque of Sultan Mecid, may not be as amazing as the Selimiye, but it still rocks. Built between 1854 and 1856 as the work of two architect brothers from a celebrated Ottoman-Armenian family, the mosque was eloquently designed in neo-baroque style. Surrounded by the sea from two sides, its wide windows let the Bosphorus light shine inside.
The historical landmark seems like an original mixture of a mosque and a church. Not because of the ethnicity of its architects, but probably thanks to the Ottoman cultural agenda of the time -a full-fledged modernization period like the Meiji Restoration in Japan...
I always associate its minarets with exquisite fountain pens, pointing the Heaven. Aren't they a symbol of enlightment and wisdom? Don't they mark the breath-taking change in their time, heralding a new world order which would be based upon the power of knowledge, instead of bayonets?
