The Hagia Sophia, nominated by many an author an historian as one of the eight wonders of the world, is certainly the number one masterpiece architecture by merit of its being one of the few structures of such huge dimensions to have stood erect for so long. Its architectural mastery was far ahead of its time unmatched for 1000 years.
Originally Hagia Sophia (in Turkish Ayasofya) the building’s name is mistranslated as Saint Sophia. The basilica was not dedicated to a sanit name Sophia, but rather to Holy Wisdom, and the two smaller basilicas built earlier at the same site where once pagan temple had stood, had bornet he same name. The small structure with a wooden roof, was constructed during the second half of the 4th century upon order of Constantius, son of Constantine the Great. Although some sources attribute the honour to the father, it is not possible to take this claim seriously, for there is clear evidence that no house of worship was built during his reign. The first Basilica of Hagia Sophia burned down completely during a fire in the year 404, and the second basilica which was of somewhat larger dimensions was opened in 415. It served Chritians for more than a century until 532 when, int he course of an uprising against the government of Emperor Justinian that ended int he death of the ten thousand and the destruction of many buildings, it too was burned down.
Justinian, who was able to suppress the uprising with great difficulty, ordered immediately afterwars that the temple ”like nothing seen before since the day of Adam or can seen int he future” be built as soon as possible atop the remnants of the second Hagia Sophia. He made all the necessary means available to the architect Anthemius of Tralles and the mathematician Isidorus of Miletos who were to prepare the plains and supervise construction, and placed all the riches of the state treasury at their disposal. Finally in 537, the largest church of the Christian world was dedicated among great festivities.
The general plan of the Hagia Sophia was actually the same that had been used a long time in many basilicas. However, this did not make things any easier in designing the dome. By the 6th century, a system devised earlier by Roman architects, but a huge centrally-located circular cupola on top of a rectangular structure was to be tried for the first time in the world. Work progressed while monks kept chanting prayers seeking Holy protection. Numerous marble pieces and columns of different shapes and sizes dating back to more ancient times were brought in from ruins all around the empire and used int he building. Later on, the columns, but none of such can be taken seriously.
As said before, the Hagia Sophia was conceived an bulit by Justinian merely as a prestige building. Nevertheless, it was regarded with awe during the centuries that followed as holy symbol, for it was not plausible for the people of those days that such a building of size unsurpassable for about at thousand years and one that world require enormous resources and technology much more advanced than what they were accustomated to could be built without the assistance of supernatural powers.
Although it was created during the 6th century as Byzantine tectonic work, Hagia Sophia is actually an experiment int he Roman tradition of architecture which had no archetype and which could not imitated afterwards.
The contrast between the exterior and interior of the building as well as the colossal dome are legacies of the Roman era. The exterior is not finelined, and the constituent elments are not tastefully proportioned. In other words, the exterior was treated simply as a crust or shell, and does not fit properly to the interior that has the magnificience of a palace, grandeur becoming an imperial building. This bit criticism on outlook not with standing, the Hagia Sophia was a great achievement, that excited Emperor Justinian during the basilica’s dedication to the point of driving his chariot into building and after praising the Lord for judging him worthy of such an achievement, shouting that he had surpassed King Solomon. The basilica soon developed into a religious centre with the monasteries that surrounded it within a few years, and was ready to be the scene of the perpetual struggle between the Byzantine Emperors and the Eastern Church.
Despite its uniqueness and magnificence, the building had many structural problems. The most important of these was that statics. At the time Hagia Sophia was built, the architectural means of transferring the weight of the cupola to the foundations were not yet fully developed. Consequently, the walls that kept stanting out finally witnessed collapse of the cupola int he year 558. While rebuilding, the cupola was raised further and the diameter reduced in order to decrease the exterior thrust and pressure. However this cupola too did not prove perfect and collapsed partly in the 10th and 14th centuries.
Throughout its lifetime, the maintenance of the Hagia Sophia always cost the rulers of the city vast sums and the poverty that prevailed towards the end of the Byzantine Empire left the church virtually a ruin. Therefore, it was the conquest of Istanbul by turks under Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror and the eventually conversion of the Hagia Sophia into mosque that saved this beautiful monument. The most vital repairs were done in the 16th century by Turkish architect Sinan the Great who, among other things, added buttresses that have supported the whole structure to this day. Also, major restroration work was done in the 19th century by the Fosatti brothers, and on different occassions after 1926 by various Turkish architects, who have also added an iron frame to the dome. After serving for 916 years as basilica and 477 years as mosque to two religions believing in the same God, the Hagia Sophia was converted into museum upon Atatürk’s orders. The mosaics that were uncovered during the 1930-1935 period are among the most important works of art of the Byzantine era that have survived to this day.
