Engineering Mystery of Master Architect Sinan's “Küfeki” Shell Limestone

Abstract

There have been innumerable papers and studies on Sinan, the master architect, and his works. Nevertheless, Sinan has been deemed only as the master architect of colossal mosques. But when the works of Sinan are closely studied in terms of the disciplines of engineering and architecture, his superiority in building statics, soil engineering, rock engineering, and hydraulics and building physics in his age is better revealed. Sinan, the architect should be rediscovered not simply out of respect towards a person who built globally wonderful works, but under the light of scientific truths and with objective measurement. In the first part of this bipartite study, the distinguished characteristics of the age when Sinan lived were defined in order to better comprehend the approaches of Sinan in material selection, which is a multidimensional decision. Accordingly, the places of use of “Kufeki” limestone were inspected along with their possible reasons. The second part summarizes the results of the experimental ...