Orhan Gazi Mosque, Bursa

Orhan Gazi Camii, the first imperial mosque in Bursa, was begun in 1339; the Karamanid Turcoman emir destroyed it when he besieged Bursa in 1413, it was repaired four years later, repaired again after the 1855 earthquake and extensively restored nine years after that — yet its plan remains essentially original ¹.

Aptullah Kuran characterises it as the cross-axial eyvan type: a domed central hall 8.45 metres across and 16 metres high, a main eyvan to the north raised three steps whose dome is ellipsoidal, and two side eyvans that served as hospices for mendicant dervishes ². The five-bayed porch rests on six piers, the south-east minaret is a nineteenth-century restoration, and the walls are composite brick and stone with saw-tooth cornices ¹.

• Source read: Freely, A History of Ottoman Architecture (2011), pp. 53–54 (Orhan Gazi Camii).
• Record created in this batch.