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THE HAGHIA SOPHIA MUSEUM
The Hagia Sophia
The Haghia Sophia, nominated by many an author an historian as one of the eighth wonders of the world, is certainly the number one masterpiece of architecture by merit of its being one of the few structures of such huge dimensions to have stood erect for so long. Its architectural mastery was far ahead of its time unmatched for 1000 years.
Originally Haghia Sophia (in Turkish Ayasofya) the building's name is mistranslated as Saint Sophia. The basilica was not dedicated to a saint named Sophia, but rather to Holy Wisdom, and the two smaller basilicas built earlier at the same site where once a pagan temple had stood, had borne the same name.
The first Haghia Sophia, a small structure with a wooden roof, was constructed during the second half of the 4th century upon order of Constantius, son of Constantine the Great. Although some sources attribute the honour to the father, it is not possible to take this claim seriously, for there is clear evidence that no house of worship was built during his reign.
The first Basilica of Haghia Sophia burned down completely during a fire in the year 404, and the second basilica which was of somewhat larger dimensions was opened in 415.1t served Christians for more than a century until 532 when, in the course of an uprising against the government of Emperor Justinian (Nika Revolt) that ended in the death of ten thousand and the destruction of many buildings, it too was burned down.
Justinian, who was able to suppress the uprising with great difficulty, ordered immediately afterwards that a temple "like nothing seen before since the day of Adam or can be seen in the future" be built as soon as possible atop the remnants of the second Haghia Sophia. He made all the necessary means available to the architect Anthemius of Tralles and the mathematician Isidorus of Miletos who were to prepare the plans and supervise construction, and placed all the riches of the state treasury at their disposal. Finally in 537, the largest church of the Christian world was dedicated among great festivities. |
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Interior view of the Hagia Sophia
The general plan of the Haghia Sophia was actually the same that had been used a long time in many basilicas. However, this did not make things any easier in designing the dome. By the 6th century, a system devised earlier by Roman architects for covering large cylindrical structures with a single dome was available to architects, but a huge centrally-located circular cupola on top of a rectangular structure was to be tried for the first time in the world. Work progressed while monks kept chanting prayers seeking Holy protection.
Numerous marble pieces and columns of different shapes and sizes dating back to more ancient times were brought in from ruins all around the empire and used in the building. Later on, a variety of legends grew up regarding the origins of these materials, especially the columns, but none of such can be taken seriously.
As said before, the Haghia Sophia was conceived an built by Justinian merely as a prestige building. Nevertheless, it was regarded with awe during the centuries that followed as a holy symbol, for it was not plausible for the people of those days that such a building of a size unsurpassable for about a thousand years and one that would require enormous resources and a technology much more advanced than what they were accustomed to could be built without the assistance of supernatural powers.
Although it was created during the 6th century as a Byzantine tectonic work, Haghia Sophia is actually an experiment in the Roman tradition of architecture which had no archetype and which could not be imitated afterwards. The contrast between the exterior and interior of the building as well as the colossal dome are legacies of the Roman era.
The exterior is not finelined, and the constituent elements are not tastefully proportioned. In other words, the exterior was treated simply as a crust or shell, an does not fit properly to the interior that has the magnification of a palace, a grandeur becoming an imperial building.
This bit of criticism on outlook not with standing,the Haghia Sophia was a great achievement especially at the time it was built, and it must have been the magnitude of his achievement that excited Emperor-Justinian during the basilica's dedication to the point of drivinghis chariot into the building and after praising the Lord for judging him worthy of such an achievement, shouting that he had surpassed King Solomon.
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