The dome as space-ordering cover in Sinan's mosque Sinan’in Camileri’nde Alan Düzenleyici Bir Örtü Olarak Kubbeler

Gennaro Paola Sonia, University of Ferrara Topic: Domes: symbol of history. Shape and Geometrical Genesis/Shapes and building types The cupola, that symbol of the perfect unity of God, has been a part of Muslim architecture from its earliest origins. The oldest monument known to us is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and it may be presumed that the value of its spherical vault was immediately affirmed at the moment of construction. At the time of Sinan, the cupola had become a typical covering for edifices of a collective character. Caravanseries, baths, covered markets, adapted this solution, repeating it in infinite combinations. The architectural unity of the Turkish Külliye depends for the most part on precisely this elegant spatial resolution. I have defined the phenomenon "figurative", with "the cupola as space ordering cover", in the sense that its presence necessarily implies a defined number of solutions for the underlying structure. This take place not only for structural reasons, but for reasons as well of a conceptual and spatial character. The regularity and essentiality seen in the repetitions of the cubic network of the plan of the Külliye or of the Bedesten, flows directly from the adoption of the cupola as covering of the rooms, stores and porticoes. The spherical vault postulates a unified space which, projected to earth, fixes the positions of the sustaining elements, whether linear or punctiform. It requires symmetrical supports arrayed in geometrical balance around the projection of its zenith. The supports are thus inscribed in regular plane figures: the square, the hexagonal, the octagonal. The zone immediately beneath the cupola is the zone of crisis in the static structure.