The Kocatepe Mosque ( tr, Kocatepe Camii) is the largest

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. It was built between 1967 and 1987 in the Kocatepe quarter in Kızılay, and its size and prominent situation have made it a landmark that can be seen from almost anywhere in central Ankara.

History

The idea of building the Kocatepe Mosque dates back to the 1940s. On December 8, 1944, Ahmet Hamdi Akseki, the Vice-President of Turkish Religious Affairs, along with seventy-two founding members, established a society known as the "Society to Build a Mosque in Yenişehir, Ankara." In 1947 this society called for projects to be drawn up by architects, but none of the submitted projects were accepted. In 1956, through the efforts of the late Adnan Menderes, Prime Minister of the time, land was allocated for the project to build a mosque in Ankara, and a request for projects was made once again in 1957. This time thirty-six projects were evaluated, with the joint project of

Vedat Dalokay Vedat Dalokay (10 November 1927 – 21 March 1991) was a renowned Turkish people, Turkish architect and a former mayor of Ankara. Early life and education He was born in Elazığ in 1927 to İbrahim Bey from Pertek. He completed his element ...

and Nejat Tekelioğlu being chosen as the one to be implemented.

Architecture

The accepted project was an innovative and modern design. The construction started, but due to heavy critique from conservatives for its modernist look, the construction was stopped at the foundation level.

later built a modified version of the Kocatepe Mosque after winning an international competition for the

Shah Faisal Mosque The Faisal Mosque ( ur, , faisal masjid) is the national mosque of Pakistan, located in capital Islamabad. It is the fifth-largest mosque in the world and the largest within South Asia, located on the foothills of Margalla Hills in Pakistan's ...

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

in 1969. This mosque, which can accommodate 24,000 worshippers, is one of the largest mosques of the world, and accepted by many as the frontiers of modern

Islamic architecture Islamic architecture comprises the architectural styles of buildings associated with Islam. It encompasses both secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. The Islamic world encompasses a wide geographic ar ...

. After a third architectural competition in 1967, a more conservative or nostalgic design by Hüsrev Tayla and M. Fatin Uluengin was chosen to be built. Completed in 1987, this project is built in a neo-classical

Ottoman architecture Ottoman architecture is the architectural style that developed under the Ottoman Empire. It first emerged in northwestern Anatolia in the late 13th century and developed from earlier Seljuk architecture, Seljuk Turkish architecture, with influen ...

style, and is an eclectic building inspired by the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, and the Sehzade and Sultan Ahmet mosques in Istanbul, which in turn, were influenced by the

Eastern Roman The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

architecture of the

Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia ( 'Holy Wisdom'; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque ( tr, Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi), is a mosque and major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The cathedral was originally built as a Greek Ortho ...

References

As, Imdat, "Vedat Dalokay's Unbuilt Project: A Lost Opportunity," in "The Digital Mosque: A New Paradigm in Mosque Design" Journal of Architectural Education (JAE), Volume 60, Issue 1, 2006, pp.54-66As, Imdat "The Kocatepe Mosque Experience, " in ''Emergent Design: Rethinking Contemporary Mosque Architecture in Light of Digital Technology,'' S.M.Arch.S. Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2002. pp.24-46

External links

Images of the Kocatepe Mosque
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120910050217/http://archnet.org/search/results.jsp?search_id=1272932&scope=personal&module_title=Imdat+As:+Collections:+Images Model photos of Vedat Dalokay's unbuilt mosque design for the Kocatepe Mosque]
Animation of Vedat Dalokay's unbuilt mosque design for the Kocatepe Mosque
{{Authority control 1987 establishments in Turkey Mosques in Ankara Mosques completed in 1987 Religious buildings and structures completed in 1987 Landmarks in Turkey Mosque buildings with domes