Uc Serefeli Mosque, Edirne

Üç Şerefeli Cami in Edirne was built by Murat II between 1437 and 1447 — the largest edifice erected in the Ottoman Empire before the conquest of Constantinople — and takes its name from the three balconies on the tallest of its four minarets ¹.

The mosque is preceded by a porticoed courtyard fifty percent larger than the building itself, roofed by 24 domes of varying sizes around a low octagonal şadırvan; the main gateway derives from the portals of thirteenth-century Seljuk medreses ¹. Four minarets stand at the courtyard corners: the tallest — 67.6 metres, then the highest in the empire until the Selimiye surpassed it — carries three balconies, the second two, and the two outer ones one each, each shaft differently patterned ².

The prayer hall's centre is covered by a dome 24.1 metres across, by far the largest of any Ottoman mosque to that date, resting on two huge hexagonal piers and four engaged piers beneath a belt of Turkish triangles; externally it rises on a dodecagonal drum braced by eight small arched buttresses — the first such arrangement in Ottoman architecture ³. Domed side chambers served as a hostel for travelling dervishes; the building was damaged by fire in 1732 and by earthquake in 1748 and was restored under Mahmut I ⁴.

• Source read: Freely, A History of Ottoman Architecture (2011), pp. 83–85.