Nuruosmaniye Mosque

The Nuruosmaniye Mosque, literally the Light Mosque of the House of Osman, stands directly at the eastern gate of the Grand Bazaar and is regarded as the first fully developed work of Ottoman Baroque. Sultan Mahmut I commissioned it in 1748 and his successor Osman III completed it in 1755, lending the complex its name. Architects Simeon Kalfa and Mustafa Aga abandoned the classical sequence of half-domes and instead crowned a circular hall with a single 26-metre dome pierced by five tiers of windows, flooding the interior with daylight. The horseshoe-shaped outer courtyard breaks decisively with the strict rectangular precedent set by Sinan. Visitors enter from the Cemberlitas side, often pausing between two bazaar runs, and use the calm courtyard as a cool retreat from the noise of the Kapali Carsi.