Hagia Sophia wouldn't have survived this long had the Ottoman architectural genius Mimar Sinan not intervened in the 16th century to strengthen the magnificent building
With the conquest of Constantinople, which was renamed as Istanbul, from the Byzantium Empire, the Ottomans turned the then-biggest church of the Christian world into a mosque, sending shocking waves across European capitals.
“Some of these buttresses had also been built in the Byzantium era. But we understand that Hagia Sophia’s dome put an extraordinary pressure over the rest of the structure, so Sinan placed stone buttresses around the building to lighten its load,” Yilmaz toldAccording to experts, if Sinan had not intervened to save Hagia Sophia, the dome of the building might have collapsed like it on previous occasions before the Ottomans took control of the building.
During his long life, Sinan oversaw enormous construction projects across the Ottoman Empire, from the splendid Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, to bridges, caravanserais, madrasas and other structures. He designed over 300 historic structures. The other two minarets at the East Wing of Hagia Sophia were built in different periods by different builders, according to most experts.
While Mehmet the Conqueror ordered Hagia Sophia to be turned into a mosque, he did not remove the Christian mosaics of the building, allowing them to survive for centuries.
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