Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [111]
Edifice Complex
ALAN RICHMAN
SUPERLATIVES ABOUT Aya Sofya—also more commonly known as Hagia (or Haghia) Sophia, the name in Greek—abound: Anthony Weller, writing for European Travel & Life in 1986, observes, “Now for sightseers to wander about in, not for the devout to pray in, Aya Sofya is still grand beyond description. It swallows wide-angled lenses and colorful words like a tidal wave.” H. W. Janson’s History of Art states, “Haghia Sophia unites East and West, past and future, in a single overpowering synthesis. The golden glitter of the mosaics must have completed the ‘illusion of unreality.’ Byzantine architecture never produced another structure to match Haghia Sophia.” John Julius Norwich, in his masterful three-volume history of Byzantium, relates that after the Nika riots, Emperor Justinian resolved to rebuild the capital on a grander scale than ever before, and Aya Sofya was the priority. The new basilica was to bear no resemblance to its two predecessors, and it was to be much larger, “far and away the largest religious building in the entire Christian world.” To the two architects—Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus—Justinian asked only that the building must be of “unparalleled magnificence” and that it be erected in the shortest time possible.
Justinian entered the completed Church of the Holy Wisdom for the first time on December 27, 537, five years, ten months, and four days after the laying of the first stone. He reportedly exclaimed, “Solomon, I have surpassed thee.” Aya Sofya’s dome, 107 feet across and 160 feet above the pavement, is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture, and until the construction of the medieval cathedral in Seville, in 1520, Aya Sofya was the largest church in the world for nearly a thousand years. For the author of this piece, it’s the mother of all masterpieces.
Savor every minute of your time in Aya Sofya; do not rush. It is worthy of much contemplation, as Alan Richman explores in this piece.
ALAN RICHMAN is a contributing writer for GQ, Bon Appétit, and Condé Nast Traveler, where this piece originally appeared. He is also the author of Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater (Harper Perennial, 2005), and has been honored with eight James Beard Awards for restaurant reviewing and two James Beard M. F. K. Fisher distinguished writing awards. Richman also writes a blog, “Forked,” for men.style.com.
IT IS an ancient thing, battered and scarred. It rises above Istanbul yet seems hunkered down, protecting itself from the abuses of nature and from an even crueler tormentor, the civilized world. Since its completion as a place of worship in AD 537, Hagia Sophia (AH-yah so-FEE-ah) has suffered as few other buildings on earth have—at least those that remain standing. I recently asked director Mustafa Akkaya, who looks after it, if he found it lovely, and he replied, “I say it is the most beautiful building in the world.” Earthquakes, pillagers, and zealots do nothing to enhance conventional beauty, so I suppose that as the centuries pass and the building deteriorates, fewer and fewer people will feel as he and I do.
To me Hagia Sophia is the noblest structure on earth, as disfigured as some brutish prehistoric creature of indeterminate age that endures even as others of its ilk have passed from existence. Its colors are a faded array of ocher and brown, dust and rose. It has so many bricked-up windows and portals that it looks to me as though every emperor and sultan who ruled over it decided the guy before him didn’t know what he was doing. I find it hard to imagine a building as magnificent as Hagia Sophia being tinkered with over and over again, but omnipotence has always had an odd effect on the people granted it.
I tend to scoff at those who claim to have sentimental attachments to inanimate