Divriği/İstanbul lookalike mosque
West of Giresun, the Black Sea coast road becomes very built up but you might want to take a dolmuş towards Bulancak and ask to be put off in front of the unmissably huge Sarayburnu Cami (Seraglio Mosque). In a part of the country which has a poor record when it comes to interesting modern architecture, it stands out not just for its massive size but also because the architect has chosen to adorn it with an entrance that is a replica of the great Cennet Kapısı (Gate of Heaven) leading into the 13th-century mosque at Divriği, near Sivas. And, as if that were not ambitious enough, the body of the mosque has been designed in imitation of Sinan’s great 16th-century Şehzadebaşı Cami in İstanbul, with a cluster of domes and semi-domes rising above a spacious prayer hall beautifully decorated with a marble mihrab and mimber and glittering stained-glass windows.
Work commenced on the mosque in 1987 and only came to an end in 2022.
Purists will criticise the design as the same sort of pastiche as Prince Charles’ neo-Georgian development at Poundsbury in England. They will be sniffy in particular about the fact that it mixes two completely different architectural styles – Selçuk and Ottoman – as if they were one and the same.
For everyone else, however, the Sarayburnu Cami serves as a reminder that the skills do still exist to build beautifully if the will is there. Besides, Divriği is notoriously difficult to get to which means that this is the closest most people are going to get to seeing the wildly exuberant carvings that won it its world heritage site status.
Transport info
Dolmuşes to Bulancak leave from beside the small park right in the middle of the Giresun waterfront,
