Mimar Sinan Memorial

Huge Sinan the Architect Agha, who passed his name in golden letters to architectural history literature, whose name is mentioned at least once in art history, architecture and engineering courses all over the world and whose place is in the curriculum, aka Sinan the Architect, is the most important architect of the Ottoman empire, which ruled for 600 years and is the architect who gives the most works. The Mimar Sinan Monument, which is one of the most valuable works of the Ankara capital of Turkish Republic, weighs 7 tons and is 4.3 meters tall ... So, who is this Sinan the Architect exactly? Sinan, who was born in 1490 as the son of a non-Muslim family in Kayseri and was included in the Ottoman devşirme program Christians conscripted with the purpose of joining the janissaries and other ottoman corps at the request of his family, is referred as the most important architect of the Ottoman Empire... Being the chief architect of Suleymaniye, Selimiye, bringing water to Istanbul with ‘forty fountains’, transforming the Mağlova Water Cistern to its current state, he is the protagonist of countless other works… Sinan, who was not born as an architect, would not become an architect immediately after his education in the Ottoman Empire... First of all, he would serve his state as a janissary for 17 years. At every mission he attended, he involuntarily examined the architectural works first... After being appointed as Chief Engineer at the age of 49, until his death at the age of 99, both educates and gives numerous works... The best known of his works, which have survived for over 400 years, are still standing and intact as they were in the first day. Mimar Sinan's monument with the same name in Ankara, which captures the grandeur of simplicity in all his works, bears the same traces. The monument built by the Turkish Real Estate and Credit Bank and by the sculptor Hüseyin Anka Özkan in 1956 in the garden of the Ankara University Faculty of Language and History and Geography leaves those who see it in awe. The inscription on it, there is a saying which is “ Sinan the Architect 1490-1588 is a gift of Turkey Real Estate Credit Bank to the community of science and art." and the monument is also among the landmarks of Ankara.