Ottoman Domes in the Balkans

Ottoman rule brought the domed mosque to the Balkans. Ottoman builders favoured simple hemispherical domes, often grouped with semi-domes and smaller domes, and by the 16th century covered them with lead. Mosques of this type shape the skylines of historic towns such as Sarajevo and Skopje.

Construction

• Structure: domes were usually built of brick, which is light, using timber centring during construction; this continued even after stone replaced brick for walls.
• Form: Ottoman architects consistently used simple hemispherical domes, usually single-shelled; Mimar Sinan, chief court architect from 1538 to 1588, used double shells on some mausoleums. Central domes were often surrounded by semi-domes and smaller corner domes.
• Covering: early Ottoman domes were usually covered with terracotta tiles, but by the 16th century domes were generally covered with lead sheet. Byzantine builders before them had likewise covered domes with lead or regional tiles.

Balkan examples

• Mustafa Pasha Mosque, Skopje (1492): a square prayer hall under a single dome about 16 m (52 ft) in diameter.
• Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, Sarajevo (1530-1531): an early classical Ottoman mosque with nine domes. The main dome, on pendentives, is 13 m (43 ft) in outer diameter and 26 m (85 ft) high, with a semi-dome over the qibla side, lower domes over the side spaces and small domes over the portico. It was badly damaged during the Siege of Sarajevo and reconstructed from 1996.
• Ferhadija Mosque, Banja Luka (1579): destroyed in 1993.
• Selimiye Mosque, Edirne (1568-1574): in European Turkey, a mosque dominated by a single huge dome roughly equal in diameter to the main dome of Hagia Sophia.

Maintenance

Lead can be shaped over curved surfaces and joined watertight, which suits domes, but its value has long made it a target for theft. War damage in Sarajevo also made dome repair part of post-war reconstruction, as at the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque from 1996.