Scientists: ‘How can we best care for Hagia Sophia?’

Published 03 Jul,2020 via Hürriyet Daily News - When I first found myself in Sultanahmet Square in mid 90s as a visitor from London, I had difficulty in finding my orientation. I could not locate north from south, east from west. I could not differentiate between all those old structures, around the ancient Hippodrome.

What was which, their date, their religion, their public function, which was a mosque, a converted church, a public building, a ministry, a private house, a library, a public bath turned into a museum? It took me some time to learn how to look at each one from a different point of view, trying to imagine their historical context, the people who lived in the period of their prime, their turbulent times, their peaceful times. The one structure I could not put into a specific time or space framework was Hagia Sophia.

To me it looked as if it always stood there at that corner of the old Hippodrome, a huge building with successive upward curves culminating on that unbelievable dome, but at the same time with its feet firmly on the ground. It always gave me the impression that nothing could make that building shake, not the strongest earthquake or the nastiest corrosion in its foundations. After moving to Istanbul, Hagia Sophia became a sort of reference point for me, a reference to the city, to its history, to its geography.