Ortaköy Mosque

The Ortakoey Mosque, officially Buyuk Mecidiye Camii, sits on the European shore of the Bosporus directly under the first Bosporus bridge. Sultan Abdulmecid I had it built between 1853 and 1856 by the Armenian court architects Garabet and Nigogos Balyan in Ottoman neo-Baroque, the same family that designed the Dolmabahce Palace on the opposite shore. The slender twin-minaret building rests on a low stone platform at the water and is opened up by large round-arched windows facing the strait. The marble medallions inside carry calligraphy by Abdulmecid himself, who was a trained calligrapher. Today the mosque is one of the most photographed views in Istanbul, particularly at dusk with the illuminated bridge behind it. It is open to visitors outside prayer times.