Kazancılar Mosque, Istanbul

"Kazancılar Camii, the Mosque of the Cauldron-Makers, the second old mosque along the Golden Horn market street, is again named for an industrial guild that has had its workshops here since early Ottoman times. It is also known as Üç Mihrablı Camii, the Mosque with Three Mihrabs. Founded by Hoca Hayrettin Efendi in 1475, it was enlarged first by Fatih himself, then by Hayrettin's daughter-in-law, who added her own house to the mosque so that it came to have three mihrabs." ¹

'The main body consists of a square room covered by a dome on a high blind drum worked as a series of triangles dispensing with pendentives or squinches. The dome carries curious arabesque designs unique in the city and attractive in design and colour. The deep porch has three domes, its arches borne at the ends by rectangular piers and in the centre by a single marble column, so that the door is shifted to the right — an arrangement common in the preclassical period of which few examples remain.' ²

"To the east lies a rectangular annexe with a flat ceiling and two mihrabs, through which one enters the mosque today; one authority calls it totally new, but in form it might well be the house added by Hayrettin's daughter-in-law, which would make it the oldest dwelling-place in the city." ³