Istanbul · a Light

Hagia Sophia has been four things in fifteen hundred years

Justinian's church was finished in 537, designed by two men trained in geometry rather than building, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. Its first dome fell in 558 and was rebuilt steeper. It was the cathedral of Constantinople for nine hundred years, and it was looted in 1204 by a Christian army of the Fourth Crusade. After the Ottoman conquest of 1453 Mehmed II converted it into a mosque, and it served as one for nearly five centuries, with Sinan adding buttresses that are part of why it is still standing. In 1934 the Turkish government made it a museum, and the covered mosaics were uncovered. In 2020 it became a mosque again, with the mosaics curtained during prayer.

Istanbul · 537 CE to the present