Hüdavendigar Mosque, Bursa

Hüdavendigâr Camii in Bursa was built by Murat I in 1365–85; its long completion reflects a reign spent campaigning in the Balkans, and the name is the imperial title Murat took on becoming sultan, inscribed in the dedication of this and his other mosques ¹.

The design is without parallel in Ottoman architecture: a mosque-hospice on the ground floor and a medrese above. Badly damaged in the 1855 earthquake, when the original upper structure collapsed, its interior was altered by later restorations ¹. Kuran classifies it as cross-axial eyvan: a two-storeyed central hall surmounted by a dome 11 metres across and 22 metres high with an open oculus over a hexagonal marble pool, four steps rising to the prayer-hall eyvan, and an upper medrese with eight cells on either side ². Byzantine columns, capitals and acanthus-carved marble door pieces were reused throughout ¹.

• Source read: Freely, A History of Ottoman Architecture (2011), pp. 54–56 (Hüdavendigâr Camii, Bursa).