Turkish Architecture
Turkey is the only country in Europe that has as its official religion the Islam (even though the constitution of the republic does not impose certain religious principles but defines the state as being under the freedom of religion). However, Turkish architecture is not completely Arab (as the rest of the islamic world) and is a complex mixture of traditional Byzantine and European architectural principles and Islamic ornamentation.
The Turkish architecture started developing independantly after the conquest of Constantinople when the Ottoman Empire was established officially on the Balkans ( by crushing the Byzantine Empire and conquering Constantinople). The Ottomans now had one of the greatest cities of Europe and the architecture of the Orthodox christianity culture in the previous Empire gave birth to the new trends in the Islamic newly established state. As a foundation of the newly build mosques, the Ottomans used the Byzantine churches - a certain example is the Blue Mosque that was previously the greatest Orthodox Church - St. Sophia.
Other influences that played an essential role in the formation of the unique Ottoman Architecture were the Iranian and the Islamic Mamluk - these arabic diversities enriched the already adopted European style of the Turkish architecture and actually transformed it into a hybrid, an amazing mixture of influences and different styles.
Today a person can easily recognise these influences when looking at buildings in Turkey, such as Property in Kalkan - the richly decorated buildings that have remained from the reign of the Ottomans are quite beautiful and completely unique - with solid construction and sharp angles, typical for the Byzantine constructions, but quite colourful and diverse in details and decorations, which was a main feature of the Arabic architectural styles.
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