Exploring the Spirit of Sinan’s Domes in the Structural Fundamentals of Today’s Large Scale Buildings

Dome can be defined as a structural element which covers a large space as a whole without any support that affects its unity. Domes provide to get large spanning even with low strength construction materials by using their advantages on geometric shapes which reduces the tensile stresses. Today, the master pieces such as Pantheon, the Basilica of St. Peter and Hagia Sophia are commonly discussed with their domes in art and architectural history. On the contrary to the domes of St Peter or Hagia Sophia which are cover a single space as a dominant construction element of the building, the domes of Ottoman Architect Sinan, who was built glorious domes in Suleymaniye and Selimiye Mosques, integrate inner spaces and the structural form in a aesthetically perfect manner. This paper aims to provide a new perspective to the structural forms and space concepts of today’s modern and high-technique buildings with reference to sixteenth century’s Architect Sinan’s mosques. The similarities of those two building types in terms of the large spanning building designs are examined with the finite element computer simulations and the features of the construction materials