Kocatepe: Ankara’s dissonant monument

by Bernard KENNEDY

Although formally opened in 1987, Ankara’s dominant Kocatepe Mosque has yet to shrug off the latent controversies which surrounded its construction and its design. One consequence is that its exterior is much more familiar than its interior.

Arguably the most prominent feature of the Ankara skyline, Kocatepe Mosque is certainly the most frequently wished away. Nineteen years after its long-delayed completion, it remains, in the eyes of many citizens, an affront to a city previously dominated by civic buildings and national monuments. Aside from the commercial basement supermarket and car park, it pretends to be nothing other than a concrete copy of the famous 15th and 16th century mosques of Istanbul. Its vast dome – 25.5 metres in diameter – and deliberate Ottoman lines are perceived as a pay-back for early Republican secularism.

Awesome proportions

Such heavy recriminations may mystify newcomers or ordinary folk, for whom an Ankara evening is now difficult to imagine without the flood-lit triple balconies of Kocatepe’s minarets. Besides featuring prominently on Ramadan TV shows, the mosque has assembled its own congregation - although it has rarely reached its 20,000 capacity - and funeral ceremonies are increasingly held here as well as at the traditional venues, Hacı Bayram and Maltepe.

Kocatepe lacks a clear approach in most directions, and its outer structures already peel and leak. From the courtyard onwards, the walls are enriched with marble, while the leaden domes and half-domes are bordered with gold and copper-leaf. Inside, the massive pillars and open spaces boast the same awesome proportions as any Ottoman masterpiece, but the atmosphere is lighter and airier and the constantly hoovered carpets are all of one colour and design.

Golden chandelier

Doors, windows and the peripheral staircases leading to the women’s area are decorated in traditional geometric patterns. In a glass showcase stands a model of the Mescid-i Nebevi in Medine – a gift to President Süleyman Demirel from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. But the eye is drawn upwards to giant brass inscriptions and to a mass of intricate paintwork that bears comparison with any painstaking Istanbul restoration, soaring up past serpentine galleries towards the 48.5-metre zenith.

Most striking of all, is the huge, low spherical chandelier, a golden invocation of sun, moon and stars – or so it seems – surrounded by multiple miniature replications. Beyond the marble niche and pulpit, the day filters in through bright stained glass windows above a blue-tiled wall.

Genuine treasures

Kocatepe’s sheer size and its innovative sources of light merit some curiosity. But if they travel to the capital at all, mosque buffs may be forgiven for seeking out instead a cluster of genuine Seljuk treasures in and around Ulus. The Hacı Bayram – long Ankara’s central mosque - attracts sight-seers with its views and its site adjoining the ancient Temple of Augustus as well as its 15th, 16th and 18th century artisanship. Less well known but also worth a visit is the early Ottoman single-domed New Mosque at Ulucanlar, East of the citadel.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tale of two cities

If a mosque was to be built at all on the once-grassy elevation where children played in decades past, could it not have been a building more in keeping with Ankara’s modernizing claim? The architectural project originally selected for Kocatepe is generally assumed to have fulfilled this specification. It was designed by Vedat Dalokay, a social democrat who was later to become mayor of Ankara. But by the time construction work finally got under way in the mid-1970s, Dalokay’s almost futuristic plans had long been rejected in favour of the rival Ottoman domes and archways of Hüsrev Tayla and Fatih Uluengin.

Dalokay’s unwanted vision, inspired by a desert tent, was son to resurface as the design for the main mosque in Islamabad. built with the aid of Saudi finance and known as the Shah Faisal. The Pakistani mosque is often described as the largest in the world, its capacity variously put at 74,000-100,000, including the extensive courtyard. Some eight metres lower than Kocatepe, the eight-faceted Shah Faisal occupies a larger, flatter site. Just like Kocatepe, it has four minarets, each 88 metres in height.

To Dalokay admirers, Islamabad’s gain was Ankara’s loss; one modern capital lost out to an even more modern one. Innovative mosque designs are still hard to come by in the Turkish capital, although the low-level mosque of Parliament might be cited, and a Dalokay-style house of prayer has been built at Gölbaşı to the south. Although designed within the constraints of tradition, a number of the neighbourhood mosques which spread across the city in the second half of the 20th century have a character of their own.

(DIPLOMAT  -  January 2005  -  Ankara)