page_title: Çamlıca Mosque
section_title: Exterior
hierarchical_section_title: Çamlıca Mosque / Exterior
caption_attribution_description: This photo has been taken in the country: Turkey
context_page_description: The largest mosque in Turkey, Çamlıca Mosque is a place of Islamic worship which was completed and opened in March of 2019. The mosque is located in Üsküdar in Istanbul and showcases an art gallery, library, and a conference hall. The cost of the mosque was 110 million USD, which was an investment into the megaproject plan by the Turkish government in an attempt to strengthen the economy. The architectural design planning of Çamlıca Mosque began in the year 2000 and was led by two female architects, Bahar Mızrak and Hayriye Gül Totu. The design of the mosque was inspired by Ottoman Islamic architecture and the works of Mimar Sinan.
context_section_description: Bellaigue describes the exterior of Çamlıca Mosque as “a huge box attached to a colonnaded courtyard; on top of the box, domes and half-domes swarm around a squat central dome surmounted by a golden, crescent-shaped finial." The design of the exterior was heavily inspired by the chief builder of the Ottoman classical age, architect Mimar Sinan. Sinan’s Ottoman designs had influence on the exterior design plan of the mosque where, “its use of concrete has relegated Sinan’s structural devices – the dome-clusters, for example, that he used to diffuse the downward thrust of the main dome – to mere ornament.” The mosque is located on Çamlıca Hill and stares out to one of Sinan’s creation, the Suleymaniye Mosque. The mosque is situated to rival the Suleymaniye Mosque, which was designed and built by the famous Mimar Sinan to be facing the hill on the European bank of the Bosphorus in Istanbul.  At 72 metres in height, the main dome of Çamlıca Mosque symbolises the 72 nations residing in Istanbul, Turkey and the dome spanning 34 metres represents the city of Istanbul (34 is the city's car plate number).  The measurements of the main dome are 3.12 metre’s wide, 7.77 metres in height and weighs 4.5 tons.  The mosque features some of the largest gates inside a place of worship in the world where the main gate is 5 metres in length, 6.5 metres in height and weighs 6 tons. The finial was coloured using nanotechnology and comprises of three parts.  The finial of the Çamlıca Mosque is  worldwide the largest.
caption: Çamlıca Mosque entrance hall
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