MIMAR SINAN BIOGRAPHY. Chief of Architects.

Mimar Koca Sinan, born in Anatolia, Turkey in 1489, is regarded as one of the greatest Ottoman architects of the 16th century. In fact he was the Chief of Architects to the Sultans from 1538 to 1588, in a career that spanned 50 years and spawned over 300 buildings including mosques, palaces, tombs, schools, fountains, aqueducts and hospitals. While the Selimiye Mosque in Turkey is considered Sinan’s masterpiece, the Suleiman Mosque in Istanbul is his claim to fame.

He was born a Greek Orthodox Christian and was drafted into the Ottoman military service in 1512 rising his way through the ranks to become a construction officer. He became Architect of the Abode of Felicity in 1538.

From his first commissioned structure, Haseki Hürrem complex, for the wife of the sultan, to his final work, the Sokollu Mehmet Pasa mosque in Istanbul, Sinan continued to refine his skills experimenting with spatial and mural treatments –something new in classical Ottoman architecture.

While the bulk of his architectural masterpieces are in Turkey, Sinan’s work can also be found in the Balkans, Anatolia, Damascus, Syria and even Jerusalem. Visitors to his famous mosques marvel at the construction of the central domes that are seemingly held in place by weightlessness, because of the perfect sphere not held in place by rafters or support beams.

Historians log the total number of structures Sinan designed at 360 which includes 84 mosques, 51 smaller mosques, 57 religious schools, 7 seminaries, 22 mausoleums, 17 care facilities, 3 asylums, 7 aqueducts, 46 inns, 35 palaces and mansions and 42 public baths.

One of Sinan’s longest projects was the construction of “Suleymaniye Kulliye,” a compound of several buildings commissioned by the Sultan on a stretch of 25 acres that overlooked the Golden Horn and Pera. It took nearly a decade to build the complex comprised of a mosque, several schools, public baths, a hospital, bookshops, a library, the Sultans’ tomb and the world’s first teaching asylum.

One of his most beautiful structures is the Haseki Hürrem Hamam, constructed in 1556, near the Hagia Sophia, which is now a museum.

Sinan died in Istanbul, Turkey in 1588, and was buried in a tomb of his own design. The Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul is named for him.

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