[1940-1956] The Demolition and Restoration of the Mosque Reliant on its Age-Value

A map that depicts the location of the Little Hagia Sophia relative to the Hagia Sophia as well as the rest of the city.

The proximity of the Little Hagia Sophia to the railroad, which has contributed to its deterioration.

This was not the first time the mosque underwent extensive restoration. A notable instance in its past was in 1740 when the Grand Vizier Hacı Ahmet Paşa visited and restored the mosque, building the Şadırvan (fountain) in the process. This is a fountain that is used for ritual ablutions.

In 1940, the mosque was in a state of decay. Humidity and repeated earthquakes as well as the occupation by refugees of the Balkan War had weakened the structure. Moreover, a railroad had been constructed in the 1870s behind the church and the repeated rumblings of trains passing by had done its part in damaging the building’s integrity. The mosque was demolished in a process of “producing, manifesting, establishing, constructing, decreeing, and maintaining by artifice” (Nora 12), in that they were taking apart a physical entity in order to rebuild it using its past artifices. The site in its new form became an “ultimate [embodiment] of a memorial consciousness that has barely survived in a historical age” (Nora 12). The building had almost crumbled – barely surviving in a historical age – yet there was this deliberate memorial consciousness to maintain it, to “[call] out for memory” (Nora 12).

Without the age-value of the mosque, this demolition would have resulted in the end of the site as it was known. However, because the site was a lieu de mémoire and contained all these imprints of time, it was able to return to a moment of history by using the physical and spiritual imprints of time.