Harmonious Relationships: Sounds and Stones in Ottoman Architecture in the Making

Abstract

Architectural narratives on building processes are admittedly rare in premodern histories. Accounts of visitors who observed and reacted to architecture in the making are even more exceptional. Moreover early modern audiences’ perceptions of music and architecture have been rarely explored in relation to building processes and synesthetic experiences. This article presents a critical reading of Caʿfer Efendi’s Risāle-i Miʿmāriyye [Book on Architecture] of 1614 by focusing on its chapter on the Sultan Ahmed mosque (1609–17) in Istanbul. Caʿfer associates sounds in the construction site with Sufi musical practices and the science of music. A conversation with a Sufi at the site reveals how twelve types of marbles, four types of strikes, and seven types of foremen were associated with Ottoman music theory. The article also explores how the shared geometrical foundations of architectural tools and musical instruments were linked to harmonious sounds and forms. This union of spatial, visual, and aural experiences of the mosque in the making produced various forms of knowledge for the visitors. Architecture’s mediating role for sensuous, spiritual, and scientific knowledge further illuminates the relation between theory and practice in Ottoman architecture.