TURKISH EMBASSY LECTURE SERIES

The Embassy of Turkey and the American Friends of Turkey

cordially invite you to

“Sinan the Architect”

A Lecture by Dr. Walter Denny

March 26^th, 2009, 6.30 pm

Embassy of the Republic of Turkey

2525 Massachusetts Avenue NW

Washington DC, 20008

The event will be followed by a reception –

An architect and a man of science who never stopped experimenting with new ideas up to the day he died, Sinan created an architectural style values of which remain universal even today. He is considered the greatest architect of the Ottoman classical period, and is often compared to Michelangelo, his contemporary in the West.

He was the chief Ottoman architect and civil engineer for Sultans Suleyman I, Selim II and Murad III. He was, during a period of fifty years, responsible for the construction or the supervision of almost every major building in the Ottoman Empire. More than three hundred structures are credited to his name. His masterpiece is the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, although his most famous work is the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul.

Sinan is an architect who managed to unite the various Ottoman architectural traditions when the Empire’s political power and artistic achievement were at their zenith. The vast majority, and the most distinguished, of the buildings he designed were built in the Empire’s then capital, Istanbul. He transformed Istanbul into a virtual open-air museum of unique architectural masterpieces.

Dr. Walter Denny has been a Professor of Art History and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts since 1970.He has also served as a Trustee of The Textile Museum in Washington DC, Honorary Curator of Carpets and Textiles at the Harvard University Art Museums, as well as a consultant to numerous museums around the world.His research has focused on the art of the Ottoman Turks, especially with regard to textiles and carpets.He has written many books on the subject, including The Classical Tradition in Anatolian Carpets (2002) and Gardens of Paradise: Ottoman Turkish Tiles of the 15th-17th Centuries (1998).Presently, he is undertaking the digitalization of over 15,000 of his 140,000 color slides for ARTStor. He is also a Senior Consultant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Please RSVP with name, title and affiliation to:

(202) 387 3200 or events@turkishembassy.org

ID required at entrance