Dictionary of islamic architecture

See also:
Ottomans
Further reading:
N.Atasoy, 
Ibrahim Pasa Sarayi,
Istanbul 1972.
B.Y.Berry, ‘The development of the bracket support in
Turkish domestic architecture in Istanbul’, 
Ars Islamica
5: 1938.
W.B.Denny, ‘A sixteenth-century architectural plan of
Istanbul’, 
Ars Orientalis
7: 49–63, 1970.
O.Erdenen, 
Istanbul çarsilari ve kapaliçarsi, Istanbul
1965.
S.Eyice, ‘Istanbul minareleri’, in 
Türk San
ati Tarihi ve
Incelemereli,
Istanbul 1963.
J.Freely and H.Sumner-Boyd, 
Strolling through Istanbul,
London
1972.
G.Goodwin, 
A History of Ottoman Architecture,
London
1971.
R.L.Van Nice and W.Emerson, ‘Hagia Sophia and the first
minaret erected after the conquest of Istanbul’, 
American
Journal of Archaeology
54: Jan. 1950.
iwan
A vaulted hall, walled on three sides, with one end entirely
open.
Iwans were common in the Sassanian world before
Islam and rapidly became incorporated into Islamic
architecture. The greatest period of diffusion was
under the Seljuks in the tenth century when iwans
became established as one of the basic units of Islamic
architecture. One of the most typical iwan
arrangements is to have four iwans opening on to a
central courtyard. The first occurence of this plan is
at the Assyrian site of Ashur in Iraq although this
later became a typical arrangement for mosques,
madrassas and palaces.
Iznik tilework
Ottoman tiles produced from the mid-sixteenth century
will have a distinctive under-glaze blue colour and design.
Iznik is a town in north-west Anatolia famed for its
pottery production during the Ottoman period.
Under the Byzantines the town was known as Nicea
and enclosed within a large circuit wall which still
survives. The city was one of the first towns to be
conquered by the Ottoman Turks and contains the
earliest dated Ottoman mosque known as the Haci
Özbek Cami.
Before 1550 the kilns of Iznik seem to have been
mostly concerned with making pottery rather than
tiles. Sometime around 1550 there was a change to
tile production which was induced by the tiling of
three great monuments, the Dome of the Rock in
Jerusalem, the Süleymaniye Mosque in Damascus
and the Süleymaniye complex in Istanbul. Before
1550 Ottoman tiles were hexagonal with bold cuerda
sec designs, the new Iznik tiles were square and
carried underglaze designs. The new shape and use
of underglaze painting enabled large multi-tile
compositions to be made. Another innovation of this
period was the use of thick red slip as an underglaze
colour which gave Iznik pottery its distinctive
appearance.