page_title: Mimar Sinan
section_title: Mid-1550s to 1570: qualification stage
hierarchical_section_title: Mimar Sinan / Work / Mid-1550s to 1570: qualification stage
caption_attribution_description: English: maybe Mimar Sinan (left) depicted holding a wooden measuring stick overseeing the construction of the mausoleum for Sultan Süleyman I. (the Magnificient) 1566. from Tārīkh-i Sulṭān Sulaymān by Seyyid Lokman (Detail). The manuscript is in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (ms. T. 413, fol. 115v.) Deutsch: eventuell Mimar Sinan (mit Stab) beaufsichtigt den Bau des Grabes von Sultan Süleyman I. 1566 Türkçe: Süleymanname'de yer alan ve Mimar Sinan'ı Kanuni'nin türbesinin inşaatının başında , elinde mimarların kullandığı ölçü aleti zira ile gösteren minyatürden alıntı
context_page_description: Mimar Sinan c. 1488/1490 – July 17, 1588 was the chief Ottoman architect and civil engineer for sultans Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II, and Murad III. Known as Koca Mi'mâr Sinân Âğâ, "Sinan Agha the Grand Architect", he was responsible for the construction of more than 300 major structures and other more modest projects, such as schools. His apprentices would later design the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul and Stari Most in Mostar.
  The son of a stonemason, he received a technical education and became a military engineer. He rose rapidly through the ranks to become first an officer and finally a Janissary commander, with the honorific title of ağa. He refined 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 was appointed as chief royal architect, applying the technical skills he had acquired in the army to the "creation of fine religious buildings" and civic structures of all kinds. He remained in this post for almost fifty years.
context_section_description: By 1550, Suleiman the Magnificent was at the height of his powers. Having built a mosque for his son, he felt it was time to construct his own imperial mosque, an enduring monument larger than all the others, to be built on a gently sloping hillside dominating the Golden Horn. Money was no problem, since he had accumulated a treasure from the loot of his campaigns in Europe and the Middle East. He gave the order to Sinan to build a mosque, the Süleymaniye, surrounded by a külliye consisting of four colleges, a soup kitchen, a hospital, an asylum, a hamam, a caravanserai and a hospice for travellers (tabhane). Sinan, now heading a formidable department with a great number of assistants, finished this formidable task in seven years. Before Süleymaniye, no mosques had been built with half cubic roofs. He got the idea of half cubic roof design from the Hagia Sophia. Through this monumental achievement, Sinan emerged from the anonymity of his predecessors. Sinan must have known the ideas of the Renaissance architect Leone Battista Alberti (who in turn had studied De architectura by the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius), since he too was concerned in building the ideal church, reflecting harmony through the perfection of geometry in architecture. But, contrary to his Western counterparts, Sinan was more interested in simplification than in enrichment. He tried to achieve the largest volume under a single central dome. The dome is based on the circle, the perfect geometrical figure representing, in an abstract way, a perfect God. Sinan used subtle geometric relationships, using multiples of two when calculating the ratios and the proportions of his buildings. However, in a later stage, he also used divisions of three or ratios of two to three when working out the width and the proportions of domes, such as the Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque at Kadırga.
  While he was fully occupied with the construction of the Süleymaniye, Sinan or his subordinates drew up the plans and gave instructions for many other constructions. Sinan built a mosque for the Grand Vizier Pargalı İbrahim Pasha and a mausoleum (türbe) at Silivrikapı (Constantinople) in 1551.
  The next Grand Vizier, Rüstem Pasha gave Sinan several more commissions. In 1550 he built a large inn (han) in the Galata district of Istanbul. About ten years later he built another han in Edirne, and between 1544 and 1561 the Taṣ Han at Erzurum. He designed a caravanserai in Eregli and an octagonal madrasah in Constantinople.
  Between 1553 and 1555, Sinan built the Sinan Pasha Mosque at Beşiktaş, a smaller version of the Üç Şerefeli Mosque at Edirne, for the Grand Admiral Sinan Pasha. This proves again that Sinan had thoroughly studied the work of other architects, especially since he was responsible for the upkeep of these buildings. He copied the old form, pondered over the weaknesses in the construction and tried to solve this with his own solution. In 1554, Sinan used the form of the Sinan Pasha mosque again for the construction of the mosque for the next Grand Vizier Kara Ahmet Pasha in Constantinople, his first hexagonal mosque. By using a hexagonal plan, Sinan could reduce the side domes to half-domes and set them in the corners at an angle of 45 degrees. Clearly, Sinan must have appreciated this form, since he repeated it later in mosques such as the Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque at Kadırga and the Atik Valide Mosque at Üsküdar.
  In 1556, Sinan built the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı, replacing the antique Baths of Zeuxippus, which are still standing close to the Hagia Sophia. This would become one of the most beautiful hamams he ever constructed.
  In 1559, he built the Cafer Ağa madrasah below the forecourt of the Hagia Sophia. In the same year he began the construction of a small mosque for Iskender Pasha at Kanlıka, beside the Bosphorus. This was one of the many minor and routine commissions the office of Sinan received over the years.
  In 1561, when Rüstem Pasha died, Sinan began the construction of the Rüstem Pasha Mosque, as a memorial supervised by his widow Mihrimah Sultan. It 
caption: Possibly Mimar Sinan (left) at the tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent, 1566
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