Sinan – Architect to Suleiman the Magnificent

In the 16th century, while Michelangelo was building St. Peter's in Rome, Sinan was covering the Ottoman Empire with mosques, bridges, and domes. A carpenter's son forcibly recruited into the Janissaries, he became the architect for Suleiman the Magnificent and, from Damascus to Istanbul, put his name to more than five hundred buildings, including the Süleymaniye and the Selimiye.

His work is photographed here by Ara Güler (1928-2018), known as "the eye of Istanbul," a member of Magnum and one of Turkey's greatest photographers. He captures the light beneath the domes, the mass of the stone, the silhouettes of the faithful under the vaults. Texts by historian John Freely and architect Augusto Romano Burelli retrace Sinan's journey and place him within his century.

Two great Turkish names brought together in a single book: the man who designed Istanbul in the 16th century, and the man who photographed it in the 20th.