scott margeson urban design politics, spring 2016 the ... · the hagia sophia, both as a political...
TRANSCRIPT
Scott Margeson
Urban Design Politics, Spring 2016
© 2016 Scott Margeson
The Shifting Design Politics of the Hagia Sophia
For the casual visitor to Istanbul, the great domes and delicate spires of the Hagia Sophia
represent a triumph of architecture: grand, soaring, and eternal. And in a sense, this is right. The
building is an edifice of graceful engineering that has persisted in place for a millennium and a half,
and offers the same sense of awe to people today as to visitors in the 6th century. But to stop our
analysis at the Hagia Sophia’s extant physical form would tell only half the story. Indeed, the
building itself is like a rock that has impassively weathered many centuries, but its symbolic
meanings are more like a core sample extracted from a rich, multi-layered sediment.
In fact, it’s hard to find a more useful example of the various ways that physical form and
political symbolism give voice to one another. The Hagia Sophia was birthed in a furious burst of
political ambition, and continued to constitute a message to the world for the next 14 centuries
(although the content of that message was to vary, as we shall see). It was not only the subject of,
but also a booster for, a long and varied succession of powerful forces. Yet the enduring, politically
naive appeal of the structure itself is proof that the building has also outlived most of these forces,
and in some ways risen above them.
The Hagia Sophia, both as a political structure and a physical one, was born in the ambitious
mind of one man. Justinian I became Byzantine emperor in 527, and quickly ran into domestic
trouble. His extortionate taxes incurred his citizens’ wrath, and by 532, discontent in the capital of
Constantinople had boiled over into open revolution. The Nika Revolt started with Hippodrome
factions, then spread to include local soldiers and politicians. They set fires that destroyed the bulk
of the city center, mostly consisting of government buildings and churches.
Justinian, on the verge of losing control of the capital after a week of revolution, finally
reacted with extreme force, and the loyalist army factions he tapped massacred as many as 30,000
of the revolutionaries (Kleinbauer 9-10). Just as the rebels’ burning of specific sites in the city took
advantage of spatial considerations to symbolically attack his reign, Justinian’s subsequent
rebuilding project was intended to demonstrate his strength and shore up his political dominance.
This is particularly evident in light of the astonishing speed with which he moved to restore
the city. His highest priority was apparently the rebuilding of the Hagia Sophia, a two-century old
cathedral that had been burned in the chaos. Construction began just a month after the bloody
crackdown and was completed a scant 6 years later (Kinross 30). The design far exceeded the old
2
© 2016 Scott Margeson
church. In place of the relatively ordinary wood-domed basilica that had been there, Justinian used
his ample funds to construct a dazzling architectural marvel.
The emperor was no stranger to the use of building projects as an extension and expression
of his own political power. According to the contemporary historian Procopius of Caesarea,
Justinian was involved in the construction of hundreds of fortresses, public works and monuments
all across the empire as well as its newly subjugated territories, including churches at over 700
sites (Kleinbauer 13). Thus Procopius calls him “Builder of the World.”
In rebuilding the Hagia Sophia, the new emperor found the perfect outlet for expressing his
numerous political aims. First, he intended to further the power of the Orthodox Church. Second, he
wanted to elevate the image of a unified Byzantine empire, in contrast to its widely varied subject
populations. Finally, it was his intention to demonstrate that both state and church were beholden
to his own personal authority (Kleinbauer 12). The awe-inspiring new basilica, built by the state on
behalf of God, stood for both earthly rule and Heavenly, and therefore accomplished all three goals.
Although the symbol was not ultimately powerful enough to unite the empire on its own, Justinian
for a time portrayed himself as unifier of church and state, and the leader of a dominant empire.
There is evidence that Justinian was quite savvy about capturing this symbolism. For
example, he is reported to have broken ground himself, by placing the central foundation stone
with his own hands. He also (apocryphally) indulged rumors that the church’s design had come to
him personally in a dream. Finally, he called on the orthodox Patriarch to pray for the building
project (Kinross 30). This would have added religious legitimacy while continuing to demonstrate
his personal influence.
So the Hagia Sophia’s political meaning at birth is clear. But beyond the symbolism, there
are also inherent meanings evident in the design itself. The first is a meaning by way of reference,
as Catherine Elgin would categorize it (40): Hagia Sophia’s bold fusion of two precedent
architectural styles. One was the central plan, a direct descendant of buildings like the Roman
Pantheon and the Mausoleum of Diocletian, while the other was the rectangular form, common to
Western churches and exemplified in basilica form by the Basilica Julia (Potter). The Hagia Sophia
asserted its place in architectural history by simultaneously exemplifying both styles at once. The
architecture is thus one of the Hagia Sophia’s enduring meanings that clearly transcends the realm
of pure politics.
The other meaning derived from the physical design is one of denotation. Elgin notes that it
is rare for buildings to depict directly (34-36), but here one of the Hagia Sophia’s most important
features was its extensive series of tile mosaics. Not original to the church of Justinian’s time, these
3
© 2016 Scott Margeson
were added throughout the subsequent era and eventually came to cover the interior in gorgeous
images, a collection doubling as several centuries’ worth of political messages. They included
commemorations of imperial victories, prominent images of Christ and Virgin Mary, and depictions
of Byzantine emperors, frequently combining more than one of these themes in a single image
(White 48-79). This content would have suggested the power and endurance of the Byzantines, as
well as the synonymy of the church with the empire. All were done by a variety of fine artists, all in
exquisite detail, and some can still be seen and appreciated today.
Not all of the Hagia Sophia’s meanings were as enduring as its physical structure. One irony
of design politics is that building projects, particularly those on the scale of a civilization, generally
outlive those who would use them to project their own status. Unlike with Shelley’s Ozymandias,
some works of the forgotten mighty don’t crumble, but are simply repurposed.
In the mid-15th century, the waning Byzantine Empire, which had carried on for nearly a
millennium after the fall of Rome’s western half, finally met its own end. The Ottoman Turks
launched an invasion, and the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI could not get western help to
repel the Muslims. The capital of Constantinople was surrounded, sieged, and in 1453 finally
conquered by Sultan Mehmet II. This did not portend, as might be imagined, the destruction of the
great Christian basilica, at least not in a physical sense.
Actually, the jewel of Constantinople was one of Mehmet’s most desired prizes, and was his
first destination upon entering the captured city (Matthews 81). The cross-cultural appeal of the
Hagia Sophia’s beauty and incredible engineering ensured that it would outlive its original purpose,
and before long the greatest church in Eastern Christendom had become the greatest mosque in the
Ottoman Empire.
This task was helped by a widely known legend that the prophet Muhammed himself had
donated expertise, materials and even his saliva to helping rebuild one of the Hagia Sophia’s
collapsed domes. While factually implausible, this tale would have added a retroactive veneer of
Islamic legitimacy to the coveted building (White 82).
Naturally, the religious and cultural conversion also expressed itself through physical
design. The basilica was outfitted with a sultan’s box on the interior, as well as a mihrab which had
to be installed on an axis about 10 degrees off from the rest of the structure in order to align with
Mecca. Mehmet II also began new exterior construction, eventually resulting in four near-
symmetrical minarets artfully integrated into the existing structure, from which the muezzins
issued the five-times daily call to Muslim prayer. The large metal cross on the great dome’s summit
was replaced with a crescent, and other Christian paraphernalia such as the icons, altar and throne
4
© 2016 Scott Margeson
were all removed (Kinross 102-3). Many of the incredible mosaics were inadvertently preserved for
posterity when they were plastered over in compliance with the Islamic tenet against
representational images, although the highest were especially difficult to reach and so remained
uncovered for centuries (Matthews 88).
These design alterations were symbolically massive but physically superficial (with the
possible exception of the minarets). The unaltered structure of the Hagia Sophia continued to
amaze and inspire, even after a thousand years - and even across a completely different culture. In
fact, there is considerable evidence that Ottoman architecture, and Islamic architecture more
generally, was deeply influenced by the newly captured crown jewel of Istanbul.
Up until the conquest of the Byzantines, domes had been prominent in major Ottoman
buildings, but they were generally single domes, or circular bays surrounded by cellules. In the
years after the fall of Constantinople, by contrast, there was a sudden profusion of references, direc t
and indirect, to the novel design of Hagia Sophia. Commonly adopted themes included domes with
much wider spans; additional semi-domes of the same diameter as the main dome; exposure of the
main lateral arches; and the use of buttresses, galleries and horizontal sections of piers. None of
these had been seen in Ottoman architecture prior to the mid-fifteenth century (Ahunbay 180-192).
Of course, there had been a strong influence on Christian architecture over the past
thousand years as well. But what is remarkable here is the speed with which the Hagia Sophia’s
architectural propositions propagated upon contact with a foreign sensibility, happily taking root in
a completely different political soil. Traces of its influence can be seen as readily in the Ali Pasha
mosque of Sarajevo as in the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice.
Once again, the physical structure of the Hagia Sophia outlasted the pretensions of its
owners. Like the Byzantines before them, the Ottomans watched their territory and influence
undergo a steady erosion, characterized by diplomatic and military losses. This came to a head in
the early 20th century. In 1908, the revolutionary Young Turks successfully rebelled against the
sultan and installed a constitution; in 1914, the Ottomans entered the Great War on the side of
Germany; and in 1919 the nation found itself occupied by the Allies and in danger of being carved
up and doled out.
That was the opportunity facing a young Mustafa Kemal (the future Ataturk), who
successfully united the Turkish people against the rule of both the foreigners and the sultanate
simultaneously, importing a brand of European enlightenment governance in their place (Kinross
122-127). After five weary years of civil war, he emerged victorious, the nation was made whole
5
© 2016 Scott Margeson
(albeit without its conquered territories), and he set about banishing reactionary Islamic forces and
setting up the modern, secular Republic of Turkey.
Secularism proved no more of an existential threat to the Hagia Sophia than Islam had. Once
again, its new owners kept it, but converted its meaning into something more aligned with their
values. In this case, it lost its religious identity entirely, and came instead to stand for the modern
values of shared knowledge and reverence for history: it was converted into a museum in 1934, and
remains so today.
Thus, the Hagia Sophia’s current function is to look back on its own journey through the
ages. Such introspection reveals that its political meanings have been immense, but ultimately
mutable. By contrast, it is those meanings that transcend politics which have endured, and which
continue to dazzle visitors and influence far-flung places today. Surely, even the Viking Varangian
Guard who carved their graffiti into the Hagia Sophia’s marble in the 11th century knew that they
were making their mark, however small, on something timeless.
6
© 2016 Scott Margeson
Works Cited
Ahunbay, Metin, and Zeynep Ahunbay. “Structural Influence of Hagia Sophia on Ottoman Mosque
Architecture.” Hagia Sophia From the Age of Justinian to the Present. Ed. Robert Mark and Ahmet
Cakmak. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Print.
Elgin, Catherine. “How Buildings Mean.” Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences.
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1988. PDF.
Lord Kinross, and Eds. Newsweek Book Division. Hagia Sophia. New York: Newsweek, 1972. Print.
Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. “The Church of Justinian.” Hagia Sophia. London: Scala Publishers Ltd, 2004.
Print.
Mainstone, Rowland J. Hagia Sophia: Architecture, Structure, and Liturgy of Justinian’s Great Church.
New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988. Print.
Matthews, Henry. “From the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day.” Hagia Sophia. London: Scala
Publishers Ltd, 2004. Print.
Potter, M. Joseph and Edmund Dickensen. “Hagia Sophia.” Salem Press Encyclopedia 2015. Web:
accessed March, 2016.
White, Anthony. “Mosaic Decoration of the Byzantine Period.” Hagia Sophia. London: Scala
Publishers Ltd, 2004. Print.
7
© 2016 Scott Margeson
Images
Hagia Sophia, exterior, in 2007 (S. Margeson)
Hagia Sophia, cut-away axonometric (W. Kleinbauer)
8
© 2016 Scott Margeson
Hagia Sophia, interior (T. Aydogmus)
9
© 2016 Scott Margeson
Interior: Islamic additions to original construction (T. Aydogmus)
Mosaic detail: Christ seated between Emperor Constantine IX and Empress Zoe (T. Aydogmus)