Prof. Dr. Zafer Sağdiç | Yildiz Technical University Istanbul

Byzantine influences on ottoman architecture

Maybe Turks are not the genetical children of the Byzantium Empire, however without any doubt Ottoman intelligentsia was direct inheritor of Roman Bureaucracy and palace organization. The location of Ottoman Beylik facilitated on one hand economic relations with Byzantium and on the other hand allowed the Ottomans the careful study of their powerful neighbour. It can be said that the Ottomans were in this respect more “modern” than most of us today, in the meaning of not focusing on religion differences but on intellectual and socio-cultural interactions. The talk will not only zoom into the socio-cultural, economic, intellectual and bureaucratic background, but it will also explain the architectural heirdom of Byzantium that without any breakdown continued in the Ottoman Empire.