The landscape of Sinan’s architecture in Thrace offers an opportunity to rethink the value of the famous Ottoman architect in light of his huge legacy, presented through his architectural and engineering works, which are spread out over a vast territory that once belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Especially in the Balkans, a region of conflicts but also of important cultural and commercial exchanges due to the proximity and coexistence with the European powers, and characterized by different cultures, traditions and religions, these traces are still visible today. They show how the Ottoman civilization was able to expand but also to adapt to the conquered places.
In this sense, the case of Thrace stands as a model of the modus operandi of ‚Ottomanization‘ of the territory, which was largely realized during the 16th century. The architecture of Sinan became a sign of the Ottoman artistic and creative inspiration coupled with the ability to administer and manage different lands and populations and thus leaving a strong tangible impact on the territory.
Luca Orlandi is an architect and architectural historian. A graduate from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Genoa, in 2005 he obtained a PhD from the Polytechnics of Turin. He teaches the History of European Architecture, Contemporary, and Italian Architecture as Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University. He participates frequently in seminars and workshops in Turkey and abroad in his fields of research including Ottoman architecture and Sinan, contemporary Italian, Turkish, and global architecture, and the accounts of travelers to the “Orient”.