The Journal of Architecture ISSN: 1360-2365 (Print) 1466-4410 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjar20 Architectural mimicry and the politics of mosque building: negotiating Islam and Nation in Turkey Bülent Batuman To cite this article: Bülent Batuman (2016) Architectural mimicry and the politics of mosque building: negotiating Islam and Nation in Turkey, The Journal of Architecture, 21:3, 321-347, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2016.1179660 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2016.1179660 Published online: 17 May 2016. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 384 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 1 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjar20 321 The Journal of Architecture Volume 21 Number 3 Architectural mimicry and the politics of mosque building: negotiating Islam and Nation in Turkey Bülent Batuman Department of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, Bilkent University, Turkey (Author’s e-mail address: [email protected]) This paper discusses the politics of mosque architecture in modern Turkey. The classical Ottoman mosque image has been reproduced in state-sponsored mosques throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Defining this particular design strategy as architectural mimicry, I discuss the emergence of this image through the negotiation between the nation- state and the ‘nationalist conservative’ discourse within the context of Cold War geopolitics. Comparing the Turkish case with the Islamic post-colonial world, I argue that the prevalence of architectural mimicry is related to the nostalgia it generates. Nostalgia is a discursive effect of architectural mimicry which is in tune with the nationalist conservative worldview in its relationship to the state’s anti-communism. This particular image was taken up by the Islamist AKP in the 2000s, within the context of the global rise of political Islam. In this instance, the same representation took on a different meaning. It functioned as a simulacrum representing the ‘nation in Islam’ with a claim to authenticity amongst the competing Islamic representations. Introduction century. This choice is not surprising since Sinan has On 20th July, 2012, the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep had a mythical cultural status for the political power Tayyip Erdog˘ an, spoke at the inauguration of the of architecture: nationalistic nostalgia for a glorious newly built Mimar Sinan Mosque in Atas¸ehir, a past represented by classical Ottoman architecture rapidly growing district in the Anatolian part of Istan- signifies imperial power and serves as an ‘origin’ for bul. This new mosque was a grandiose replica of clas- a national(ist) architecture. Curiously, the dedicatory sical Ottoman examples, with a 42-metre-high dome inscription signed by the Prime Minister himself and four 72-metre minarets; it was large enough to explained the significance of ‘Sinan the master’ as welcome 12,500 people for prayer (Fig. 1). In having shown ‘the glorious face of a nation and civi- addition, it contained conference and exhibition lisation’ with his works. Here, the curious expression halls, classrooms, shops, a library and a two-storey of ‘a nation and civilisation’ is not a case of parking garage. It was built in twenty-two months awkward translation; the Turkish phrase itself refers for an estimated cost of 20 million USD.1 Although not to the Turkish nation and Islamic civilisation as it was intended to be named the ‘Anatolian Great two separate entities but rather implies two qualities Mosque’, this was changed on the Prime Minister’s of one and the same entity. instruction to honour the master architect of Suley- If we put this odd point aside to come back to later man the Magnificent who lived in the sixteenth and turn to the mosque itself, according to Erdog˘ an # 2016 RIBA Enterprises 1360-2365 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2016.1179660 322 Architectural mimicry and the politics of mosque building: negotiating Islam and Nation in Turkey Bülent Batuman Figure 1. Mimar Sinan Mosque (2012; photograph by Gülse Eraydın). it fulfilled a crucial need in the Anatolian part of the the Prime Minister was not referring to the size of city: ‘There is the Fatih Mosque; there is the Sultan the mosque, but to its political symbolism signifying Ahmet and the Süleymaniye on the European side. Ottoman power. We wished to have a selatin mosque on this side Finally, if we look at those who attended the inau- as well.’ The choice of the word selatin was signifi- guration ceremony, aside from the group of Minis- cant and very conscious, since the Prime Minister ters, the Prime Minister was accompanied by the used it twice in his speech. The word is literally the President of the Iraqi National Assembly, who embo- plural form of ‘Sultan’ and is used to define died significance in terms of the ethno-religious div- mosques built by Royal family members in the isions within Middle-Eastern politics. Being the Sunni Ottoman era. Considering that the Maltepe representative occupying the third most powerful Mosque built between 1988 and 2001 dominated seat (after the Kurdish President and the Shiite the skyline of the Anatolian side, it was clear that Prime-Minister), within the delicate and at times 323 The Journal of Architecture Volume 21 Number 3 tense power relationships in Iraq he was a close ally even under neo-liberal globalism. Below, I will of Turkey. That is, his attendance was a political begin with a discussion of architectural mimicry gesture towards the Middle East. This was in tune and its interpretations in the field of architectural with Erdog˘ an’s victory speech on the night of the history. Next, I will analyse the politics of elections in June, 2011, where he hailed ‘all those mosque-building in Turkey and the meanings pro- in Baghdad, Cairo, Sarajevo, Baku, Nicosia and all duced through mimicry. In doing this, I will refer to other friendly and brotherly peoples who turned three particular cases from two different periods. I their eyes to Turkey’ and stated that their victory will present Kocatepe Mosque as the prime was the victory of ‘the oppressed and the aggrieved’: example of mimicry for nostalgia with reference ‘Believe me, Sarajevo is victorious as much as Istan- to the work of Homi Bhabha. Then I will discuss bul [today]; Beirut as much as Izmir, the West Bank two recent examples, both of which were pro- and Gaza as much as Diyarbakır. Today it is the posed for Istanbul within the Islamist moment: Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans as the unbuilt project for Taksim Square and the much as Turkey that is victorious.’2 Çamlıca Mosque, now under construction. I will These three issues present at the inauguration of argue that the deployment of architectural Mimar Sinan Mosque—namely the metonymic use mimicry to reproduce the image of classical of the (Turkish) nation and (Islamic) civilisation, the Ottoman mosques produces a distinct meaning in curious reference to Ottoman rule symbolised with the current global context. selatin mosques and Prime Minister Erdog˘ an’s politi- To support my argument, I will briefly discuss cal ambitions to be influential across the Muslim the reflections of the ‘Islamic revival’ in mosque world—define the main topic of this paper. I will architecture. I define the return to traditional archi- discuss these three issues through the politics of tectural features in mosque architecture as re- mosque architecture, specifically the reproduction Orientalism, which supports the idea that there is of the Ottoman classical mosque image. My main one whole entity called Islam and affirms its con- argument in this paper is that although imitation struction as the ‘other’ in the Western gaze. In of classical Ottoman mosque architecture has been contrast, the mimicry of Ottoman mosque architec- in place throughout republican history and was pol- ture at the current moment has to be understood itically effective after the 1950s, its recent utilisation differently, since it implies a singularity of the is significantly different and operates as an instru- Ottoman mosque type within the current global ment in rebuilding national identity with reference context. I discuss the mimicry of Ottoman to Islam. mosques as a case of self-Orientalism, which Architectural mimicry as a political instrument is differs from re-Orienalism with its claim to differen- not a twentieth-century invention and it has tiate itself from other representations of Islam to often been deployed within the distinct contexts be recognised not only by the Western gaze but of colonialism, post-colonial nation-building and also the Islamic audience. 324 Architectural mimicry and the politics of mosque building: negotiating Islam and Nation in Turkey Bülent Batuman The politics of architectural mimicry republican Turkey, following its foundation in Mimicry was an important component of colonial 1923. Modernism was seen as a cultural manifes- architecture. The use of already existing architectural tation of nation building throughout the inter-war idioms within colonial encounters has been scruti- period.7 Hence, ideas, schemes and forms related nised by scholars since the late 1980s.3 The coloni- to urban development and architectural style were sers often visually reproduced traditional transferred from Europe.8 In the post-war era, architectures of the colonized, at times to display Turkey was also among nations