Dtravel’s City Guide Series: Love of Architecture
Several styles have dominated the architectural world across the globe since the time of Roman architecture in the fifth century. Yet each culture adds its own unique influences, giving birth to new architectural trends regionally and globally. This Dtravel travel guide will focus on the unique architectural history and style in each culture and how they grew into major movements influencing other architectural styles.
We’ll visit the colorful, onion-shaped domes on Russia’s Byzantine palaces that inspired fairy tale castles across Europe, the indigenous influence on intricately carved wooden balconies on Columbia’s Spanish Colonial homes, and the mythical culture keeping neo-Gothic architecture alive in Poland. For each city, we’ll cover the architectural history, places to see in a specific architectural style there and unique architectural experiences you must have while there.
Before we embark on this tour, here’s a brief review of the major architectural periods.
Byzantine (330 AD) — Most prominent in Eastern Europe, Byzantine’s large dome structures with ornate mosaics are spread across Europe.
Roman (AD 43–C.410) — The lost ancient ruins of Roman conquerors are continually being rediscovered across Europe including amphitheaters, churches, walls, forts, and baths.
Romanesque (500+) — Romanesque is the first great architectural period to emerge in Europe during the Middle Ages, from 500–1000. Characterized by arched windows and doors and columns with turrets, dozens of churches and imperial residences were built, mostly throughout Germany and France.
The Fall of Rome — Early Medieval (C.410–1066) to Medieval (1066–1485) — After the fall of Rome, Christianity expanded throughout Europe leading to the building of large cathedrals to welcome believers in the 10th and 11th centuries. The Catholic Church was at the forefront of creating magnificent art and architecture to attract and convert adherents.
Gothic (1150–1600) — The Gothic style from France was adopted throughout Europe. Advances in stone masonry led to more decorative features, characterized by arched windows, pointed arches, rib vaults, flying buttresses, and interlaced tracery. Stained glass windows became very popular during this period.
Baroque (1600–1750) — Known for its grandiosity and domes and colonnades, the more ornate and decorative Baroque style was especially popular in grand churches and castles.
Neo-Classical (18th–19th c.) — A revival of Classism characterized by grand scale designs, ancient Roman columns and Greek Doric designs, and domed or flat roofs.
Brutalism (Post-War) Architecture (1945–1975) — Europe’s post-war Modernist architecture was largely influenced by advancements in the new materials of the industrial revolution — steel framing, reinforced and precast concrete, glasswork, and machine tooling. These concrete monoliths are also the most controversial.
Contemporary (1980 onwards) — Contemporary architecture rejects strict symmetry and harsh lines for more rounded and fluid structures and a wider range of material choices. IM Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre is a classic example of the juxtaposition of the old and new.
We hope you enjoy this tour of breathtaking architecture through these richly diverse destinations and are inspired to take your next trip! Book with Dtravel and check off these architectural wonders from your bucket list:
- St. Petersburg, Russia
- Tel Aviv, Israel
- Gdansk, Poland
- Rethymno, Greece
- Santiago, Chile
- Moscow, Russia
- Kyiv, Ukraine
- Cartagena, Columbia
- Istanbul, Turkey
St. Petersburg, Russia
Architectural History
Saint Petersburg (1703) was designed by Czar Peter the Great to be a quintessentially European city. Yet with its eclectic combination of strict Eastern European planning and displays of grand opulence on an imperial scale — from golden domes and statues to cascading fountains — the architecture is uniquely Russian. The ‘Golden City’ built across more than 100 islands linked by bridges and canals left its own hallmarks on the Baroque period known as Petrine Baroque.
Since the history of this magnificent city is concentrated in the center along the Neva River, a boat tour is a good way to start exploring this living museum and window into czarist Russia.
Places to See — In the Petrine Baroque Style
This city of nobility, political intelligentsia, and scholars has a rich historical and architectural legacy, which begins in the spit of Vasilyevsky Island, the administrative center of the city, across from the Winter Palace. Since many of its historical buildings are now among the over 200 museums in the City of Peter (St. Petersburg), a museum tour is a good way to explore the architecture.
During the throes of war, from a boat on the Neva, Czar Peter personally chose the spot for the Peter and Paul Fortress (1703–1740). The shipyard (1706) would build most of the ships of the Russian fleet. Eventually a stock exchange (Hermitage heraldry collection) in Greek Revivalist style, and a customs house (Pushkin House Literary Museum), surrounded by two large warehouses were built. In 1823, the Admiralty, a rectangular red brick building in Russian classicism style was completed.
Swiss architect Domenico Trezzini built the fortress and Peter and Paul Church in the Petrine Baroque style of Russian architecture employed by Peter the Great, as well as the city grid and the styles of homes, assigned to families by class. This more modest Baroque style characterized by less ornateness, simplicity, symmetry and color is on display in both the Summer Palace of Peter I and the Grand Peterhof Castle. With its separate facades, the Grand Palace could be mistaken for a village in Holland, German or Switzerland — all major influences of the Petrine Baroque style.
Unique Architectural Experiences
If you visit in May through July, you can see this imperial city in all its glory during the White Nights when it’s alight in golden hues. Under these bright nocturnal skies in Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral, most Russian emperors from Peter 1 to Alexander III were buried. Until the 1920s, it housed Russia’s political prisoners including princes and tsars, such as Prince Peter Kropotkin, Dostoevsky, and Trotsky.
Classism is a second major architectural influence. St. Petersburg Academy of Science, an example of the Classicism style, has served as a repository of the works of Russia’s great scientists since its opening by Catherine II in 1787. The Greek influence on St. Isaac’s Cathedral Museum, the fourth largest cathedral in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site, is evident in the large dome, and columns under a triangular bas-relief.
Another celebration of Classicism, the Alexandra Palace, built southeast of St. Petersburg by Catherine the Great, reopened as a museum of relics from the imperial dynasty in 2021. It’s here that the Romanov family was imprisoned following the overthrow of the House of Romanov in 1917. Directly south of the city is the summer residence of the Tsars Catherine Palace, built in the Rococo style. The opulent palace houses the famous Amber Room, reassembled after being stolen by the Nazis during World War II, combining historical signifcance along with the chance to see an example of Rococo style architecture.
Tel Aviv, Israel
Architectural History
In Israel, architectural history goes back to the land of Sodom and Gomorrah of the Old Testament over 4,000 years ago. Up until 2009, the only evidence that these biblical lands existed was when remnants of what was believed to be the city were discovered next to the Dead Sea just east of Jerusalem on the border of Israel and Jordan.
Thus, when an influx of European migrants brought the trendy Bauhaus style to Tel Aviv in the 1930s, a clash of architectures seemed inevitable. Much to the contrary, what is now known as the White City — the first of over 4,000 Bauhaus structures in Tel Aviv — is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site recognized for modifying the popular architecture of the modernist movement to a unique culture.
Places to See — The Middle Eastern Bauhaus Movement
The best place to see these Modernist Bauhaus buildings on display is Rothschild Boulevard, where the first Bauhaus structures were resurrected. Here, you’ll find the iconic Bauhaus design feature of rounded curved corners employed in a fluid but different way in the overall building and balcony designs.
The Modernist movement is also transforming the ancient architecture of the Old Jaffa Port. The trend in the architectural world in the Old Jaffa Port area is the conversion of buildings into homes with the original old stone walls and arched ceilings.
Jaffa, the historical gateway to Palestine, is undergoing a renaissance since the widespread destruction wrought in 1948. The new Tel Aviv-Yafo Railway Park provides a way to easily bike or walk to the Old Jaffa Port. Catching the European trend of places of worship converting into hotels, British designer John Pawson has converted an old convent School of the Sisterhood of Saint Joseph and French hospital into The Jaffa Hotel in a unique Arabic and Neo-Roman style to retain its heritage.
Unique Architectural Experiences
Tel Aviv’s mammoth bus station (1967–1993) — the size of 43 football fields — is an audacious display of Brutalist architecture. Award-winning Architect Ram Karmi, a former Ministry of Housing architect, has left his imprint of brutalist or gray architecture across the city, including the National Theater and Ben-Gurion University, south of Tel Aviv.
St. Peter’s Church, built in 1654, located in Old Jaffa, was designed in the New Spanish Baroque architectural style in the place of the medieval St. Louis’ citadel. Among the remnants of the citadel are several rooms where Napoleon lived in 1799.
To view ancient architecture, just two hours away by car, you’ll find yourself in the lost city of Sodom. Calcium sulfite formations, the byproduct of burned limestone, support the bible’s stories of destruction by fire, reportedly by god for their “ungodly” lifestyles. Sulfur balls, or brimstone, appear throughout the structure. There’s nowhere else in Israel, or even on the planet, where near 100 percent purity sulfur balls can be found. Could this be a product of God raining down fire and brimstone? Visit this architectural and archeological treasure and decide for yourself.
Gdansk, Poland
Architectural History
For architectural enthusiasts, the rebuilding of Gdańsk after the medieval historical district’s destruction in 1945 has uncovered some architectural gems. Historians made an effort to rebuild buildings to the earliest known state according to photographic evidence, so the architectural style in many cases predates the style at the time of its destruction. Visitors can delight in the more decorative features of the Gothic and Renaissance eras intended to recreate the former splendor of the buildings.
Places to See — A Reconstruction and Renaissance
Pre-war, Gdańsk’s position as the wealthiest city in Poland and multicultural trading center is reflected in the Mannerist or Late Renaissance style that followed a rich legacy of Gothic architecture. The rich, multicultural city could afford to be more liberal with the forms, order, and symmetry in past architectural styles. These different architectural styles are on display on Mariacka Street, the main street of the rebuilt old town, once the capital of trade on the Baltic Sea and the home of the Solidarity movement.
At the western end of the Dlugi Targ, the main thoroughfare, stands the 400-year-old Golden Gate gateway to the market street and square. Also known as the Royal Way, the street is lined with tenement houses with gables. Along the way, you’ll pass the Green Gate, the former residence of Polish monarchs and currently the National Museum, an example of the Dutch Mannerism style, a more constrained Baroque style considered suitable for palaces.
Some of the architecturally significant Gothic buildings in the main town area make up the Gdańsk History Museum such as the Main Town Hall with an impressive view of the city. Built in the Middle Ages, the structure has Gothic and Renaissance features and a Renaissance hall that rivals others in Europe. The Gothic Altus Court, built in 1348, is a former meeting place for merchants featuring a large gothic hall.
At the center of the old town stands one of the largest brick churches in the world, the Gothic Saint Mary’s Church, distinguished by its red brick and tall pointed spires. When built in 1343, it replaced a 13th century medieval church.
Unique Architectural Experiences
Experience a slice of what it was like to live like a Polish citizen by touring some affluent historical homes. Uphagen House is a Baroque-style home rebuilt after the war, and today showcases the life of an upper class 18th century merchant. Older homes include the Hewel House of 17th century merchant and shipbuilder Georg Hewel and the 16th century Ferber House of Mayor Constantin Ferber imprisoned for his rebellion against the king.
Built in the prevalent Elizabethan style in 1611, the Shakespeare theatre was destroyed, and eventually rebuilt by Italian architect Renato Rizzi. The minimalist modernist design bunker-style with no windows or openings is controversial, but acts like a vessel protecting the theatre which is more faithful to the original design of the medieval theatre with a replica of the gallery boxes with wooden benches, and an open roof.
Malbork Castle was the headquarters of the grand master Teutonic order and crossroads of European commercial marine routes. The classic medieval brick Gothic castle and a World Heritage site was home to Polish kings and German emperors
Rethymno, Greece
Architectural History
Rethymos architecture is a fascinating clash of cultures. The Venetian lighthouse still greets visitors who approach by water yet minarets from mosques of the Ottoman empire decorate the skyline as reminders of the city’s tumultuous past. The architecture of the island of Crete’s third largest city reflects its many occupiers and conquerors. The architectural legacy is buildings with layers of Venetian, Greek, Ottoman, and Turkish styles.
Places to See — Harmony in a Clash of Cultures
The Venetians established the old town in the 1500s to grow their maritime empire and spread Catholicism. The Ottoman Empire would later occupy the city for three centuries. This legacy is well represented at the Old Fort Fortezza on the eastern side of the port where places of worship were transformed over the centuries depending on whom the current occupier was. The entrance to the fort is an archway leading to the old town built by the Venetians, from 1573–1580, and later occupied by the Ottoman Turks from 1646–1898, after taking the fort in the mid-17th century.
The fort contains four bastions and a ravelin (a fortification in front of a bastion) housing the Archaeological Museum of Rethymno, armory and storage rooms.
Only simple brick structures the size of one-room school rooms remain of the churches. The Mosque of Sultan Ibrahim, originally the Cathedral of St. Nicolas, is missing its minarets. The churches of Saint Theodore and Saint Catherine have a small bell tower above the door. Medieval remnants are visible. Similar structures can be found in Crete with larger taller additions in the back, essentially making the original small structures an entryway.
Unique Architectural Experiences
In the Southeast stands the beautiful antiquated Monastery of Arkadi from 1587, which remains the most important in all of Greece. The Baroque facade has an elegant bell tower with two bells. When a storm rages in the hills in the background, one could easily be transported to the Middle Ages. The museum, which is rich in artifacts, has an impressive weapons collection from this vestige against the Turks.
The Archaeological Museum of Rethymno, opposite the Fort, looks like a concrete Brutalist structure that formerly served as a state prison. The front of the structure has retained its ancient archway and ornate doorway. The old pentagonal fort has an impressive collection from the Neolithic (3500–2900 B.C.), Early Minoan (2800–2100 B.C.), Geometric (1000–700 B.C.) and Archaic (700–500 B.C.) Periods.
About halfway down Ethnica Antistaseos street towards the old town is the Church of St, Francis. This basilica built in the Venetian period with a wooden roof, used as the former Monastery of the Franciscan Order, is a cherished monument.
Santiago, Chile
Architectural History
The architecture of this South American city nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes was largely influenced by its Spanish conquistadors who colonized Chile from 1540 to 1818. Following numerous earthquakes in the eighteenth century, Neoclassical, and later Modern architecture, has prevailed in the city of Santiago.
A good place to start your tour and capture this unique geography is with a 360-view of the city and Andes from the Sky Costanera, a skyscraper with the highest point in South America at 300 meters. From the observatory, you’re at the same viewing level as the top of the Andes. The skyscraper is not earthquake proof, although most architecture in the city is seismic-resistant. In this country stretching across one of the highest risk earthquake zones, only architecture in public spaces must be earthquake proof.
Places to See — The Survival of the Neoclassical Style
The castle-like La Moneda, the seat of the Chilean government, is a fine example of the Neoclassical style. The grand square structure surrounds a large courtyard in the style of Versailles but the design with its flat roof and columns and Doric features is more Classicism than Baroque.
Even with the major religious buildings, the Neoclassical design is prevalent. The Metropolitan Cathedral, situated in the northwest corner of the Plaza de Armas, is a classic example. The first cathedral buit in 1600 was destroyed by an earthquake in 1647, followed by subsequent earthquakes in 1662, 1687 and 1730. Again, the new cathedral built in 1775 with work ongoing to the end of the 19th century, was built in the Neoclassical style. Once inside, though, the interior leaves the observer awestruck by the ornate Baroque design, with each archway intricately decorated. The Southern facade is Romanesque.
These styles also come together in the Museum of Fine Arts, built in 1910, of Neo-classical and Baroque Revival influences.
While in the old town, the Santiago stock exchange, built in 1893, designed in the French Renaissance style with a triangular structure is bound to catch your eye.
Unique Architectural Experiences
Away from the city in the nearby wine country, Neoclassical manor houses are built on a grand scale. In the shadow of the snow-capped Andes, the terroir irrigated by the fresh water from the Andes has emerged as some of the richest for growing grapes. Wineries in the Maipo Valley produce some of the world’s most popular and admired wines. At Conch Y TORO (1883) or Cousiño Macul (1856), which remains in the hands of the founding family, the manor houses with Doric entranceways and standing on columns could be mistaken for a Greek temple. Marvel at the architecture while sipping your favorite Carmenere, Chardonnay, Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, or Syrah at these wineries.
Santiago has a history of painters influencing architecture. Two of the hot buildings in Santiago architecture were inspired by landscape artist Juan Grimm. They are the Edificio Consorcio and Templo Baha’i, both sustainable architecture designs. The Consorcio has plants growing off the sides and roof. Templo Baha’i was designed as a reflection of how we move through space.
Moscow, Russia
Architectural History
Moscow’s early architecture was influenced by Byzantine style and indigenous cultures. Early Byzantine styles used wooden structures before moving to stone and then the white stone that became indicative of the Kiyevan Rus movement. Pre-Petrine, a clearly distinct Muscovite style evolved using more color and design variations.
Moscow architecture was strongly influenced by the trends in neighboring cities, and especially the Kyivan Rus style and later Russian Baroque of Ukraine, and Petrine Baroque of St. Petersburg. From these styles emerged the Naryshkin Baroque, or Muscovite Baroque, in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Places to Visit — The Muscovite Style
The evolution of the Muscovite style is well epitomized in the design of Saint Basil’s Cathedral. The helmeted domes and long narrow windows on a white stone structure are classic Kiyevan Rus and evident in 14th–15th century buildings, such as the Andronikov Monastery from 1357. By the 15th century, a distinct Muscovite style emerged. In place of the white stone structure is a colorful patterned terracotta and white. The domes employ different designs, textures and colors. The colorful cathedrals feel like it came from a fairy tale. The Menshikov Tower, or Church of Archangel Gabriel, in the Basmanny District is another example of this colorful style.
Renaissance architecture was chosen for the crown jewel of Moscow, the Kremlin. The Kremlin included five palaces and four cathedrals within the Kremlin walls. The Grand Kremlin Palace (1837–1849) is a Classicism style exercising strict symmetry with Russian Byzantine influences.
In the 19th century, there was a return to Russian architecture. The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (1839–1893) is typical of the Russian Revival style, with one rotund with two domes. Romanticism influences are also evident in the rounded archways. The State Museum of Moscow returned to the red brick in its Neo-Russian design.
If the building looks like it floated out of a fairy tale, it could be Moscovite architecture. These magical castles and their colorful cupolas started to appear throughout Russia and Europe. Trinity Cathedral and the Church of the Savior on Blood in St. Petersburg are great examples of the Moscovite style.
Unique Architectural Experiences
The fickle Catherine the Great influenced many atypical architectural legacies. The Catherine Palace, Catherine the Great’s Versailles, was not finished until 2007, after she ordered the first design to be torn down. The Neo-gothic-classical palace is currently an architecture and art museum. Finials, lancet windows and hood moulds provide a Gothic appearance while Classic Doric entranceways are given an atypical tripartite layout.
The original Wooden Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich from 1667, demolished by Catherine the Great in 1768, was rebuilt in the 1990s at the far end of Kolomenskiy Park. The re-creation revitalizes a unique building method, which notably lack any nails or fasteners in its design.
Kyiv, Ukraine
Architectural History
The medieval city of Kyiv from 482 predates Russia. Many architectural styles such as the Kiyevan Rus, commonly identified through the onion-shaped domes, first flourished in Kyiv before making their way to the future motherland. Yet after Ukraine joined the Russian empire in 1793, the winds of influence changed. After Kyiv was bombed during World War II, Soviet architecture had a large influence on the rebuilding of the city.
As you tour Kyiv, you’ll see pre-war architecture controversially juxtaposed against Soviet Modernist architecture. Tied to a long history of political tensions, the propensity of one generation of architects to reject the previous one is much more common in Ukraine. What is certain is that the future of these Soviet buildings is unknown. Many face remodeling, restoration or being torn down so the time to view them may be fleeting, depending on the future political stance of Kyiv.
Places to See — In the Russian Baroque Style
Ukraine started to assert its own style of architecture during the Byzantine period (330 AD –1453). The Byzantine-style centered around a large round rotunda gave way to a structure with many domes. This style can be seen in the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev (1037–54), considered a hallmark of the Kyivan Russian style and a UNESCO World Heritage site. In later upgrades, Kyiv copied Novgorod’s famous Saint Sophia with onion-shaped domes.
Other examples of the Kyivan Rus style are the Kiev Monastery of the Caves (1051), a spectacular complex adorned with the Great Lavra Belltower and housing the largest museum in Kyiv.
The Kiyevan Rus style flourished in the Kiyevan-Novgorod corridor. West of Kyiv, Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod (1045–1050) first added helmeted, or onion-shaped domes to its Kyivan Rus design in the 12th century. By the 12th century, the white stone church with onion domes was copied across Ukraine and eventually Russia. After Kiev was destroyed during the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, in the 17th–18th century, Saint Sophia was remodeled in the Ukrainian Baroque style topped with green and gold onion-shaped cupolas.
Throughout Europe, however, another style would dominate. Inspired by Versailles, hundreds of Baroque castles were built all over Europe in the 17th and 18th century. Kiev’s Versailles is the Mariinski Palace, the home of the President, built in the Neoclassical style. Baroque features include the use of color, such as blues, and prominent entranceway. The Doric entrance and sheer grandeur and symmetry of the structure are Classical features.
After the bombing of Kyiv during World War II, Soviet Modernism with roots in Brutalism, made use of raw materials from the factory to rebuild. Examples of Soviet Brutalist architecture are Shevchenko National University and its bas-relief carvings and the Flying Saucer (1960s) over the State Scientific-Technical Library.
Unique Architectural Experiences
The Pyrohiv Museum of Folk Architecture and Folkways outside of Kiev provides a glimpse into the lives of Ukrainians throughout the ages. In this charming folk village, you’ll find small houses with architecture representative of styles throughout Ukraine, including structures of twigs, stucco, large bricks and straw roofs.
Kyiv’s castles and famous houses have many mystical stories of being protected by the creatures that adorn them. A tour may include Richard’s castle and its disenchanted ghosts, the Yagimovsky House protected by cats and chimeras, the Ginzburg apartment building protected by angels and nymphs, or the art nouveau Gorodetsky House, used for government receptions, adorned with statuary of animals and creatures.
Cartagena, Columbia
Architectural History
Cartagena des Indias (named after the Spanish city), founded in 1533, by the Spaniards became a port of major strategic importance from where Peruvian silver, Bolivian and Inca gold, and slaves were transported to Europe. The rich cargo that left these shores was also a key target of buccaneering pirates from Spain, France, Britain and other countries. Unfortunately, these attacks also robbed Cartagena of its earliest architectural history.
When exploring Cartagena 16th century architecture, a line is typically drawn between before and after the attack on the city by the British pirate Francis Drake in 1588, when architecture of great historical significance was destroyed and later restored.
Places to See — A Spanish Colonial Legacy Ravaged by Pirates
After the attack of Drake and for the next two centuries, Cartagena would fortify its now old town with an 11-kilometer stone wall to defend itself against the pirates. The fortifications helped to protect the Spanish Colonial architecture of the city, also known as Heroíca, from its buccaneering invaders. From the many bastions, you can enjoy wonderful views of the Caribbean Sea and city.
Walking around the old town, visitorscan go back in time surrounded by Spanish Colonial architecture, known for its thick stucco walls and dark wooden features, including doors, balconies, and support beams. Look closely and you’ll spot some very ornately carved wooden balconies, an indigenous influence, as seen in other parts of South America.
Within these walls, two blocks east of the Santo Domingo Fort, was the Convent de Santo Domingo (1539), one of its most important buildings that was protected and whose Dominican order arrived before the city’s founding. It’s well worth entering to admire the magnificent Baroque altarpiece. Other notable religious structures of the period include the Church of Santo Domingo (1539), Cartagena Cathedral, or St. Catherine of Alexandria Cathedral (1577), and Church of San Pedro Claver (1580–1654).
The Castle of San Felipe de Barajas stands proudly on a hill across the lagoon from the old city. Outside of the city walls, the castle survived attacks financed by European kings and pirates into the nineteenth century and the Spanish American Wars of Independence. For foreign soldiers who successfully breached the castle walls, they often became lost in a series of dead end tunnels at this now UNESCO World Heritage site.
Las Bóvedas (1798) was once an ammunition storage and then a prison. Now the former dungeon cells under the 47 archways along the wall of the San Diego district are full of shops.
Unique Architectural Experiences
The Inquisition (1478–1834) officially reached Cartagena in 1610. The Palace of the Inquisition (1610–1770) is known for its late Spanish colonial architecture with Baroque influences — a large carved stone entranceway with engraved pillars on either side of the arched doorway imposing Spanish authority on the modest colonial structure. It’s also the former home of the Court of the Holy Office, which oversaw the work of the inquisitor up until the time of independence from Spain. Today, the building houses a museum with torture and other artifacts from this violent period of the Catholic Church, also known as the Witch Trials.
A trip to Cartagena would not be complete without a visit to the Museo del Oro to view the Inca and other fine gold artifacts that European royal houses and pirates fought over for centuries, housed in a classic yellow colonial home in the Old Town.
Istanbul, Turkey
Architectural History
Known as Byzantium in the earliest historical records and then Constantinople (330–1922), Istanbul has served as a bridge between Asian and European cultures for over 2,000 years. Some of the noblest religious structures ever built sprung out of the struggle for power among the world’s great religions at this ancient crossroads between the East and West. This reference is of course to the Sulaymaniye Mosque and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.
Start with a panoramic vista of this ancient city history from the Galata Tower (1348]. The medieval stone tower has an observation deck and restaurant, and provides a sweeping view of several millennia of Roman and Ottoman influence layered onto the architecture.
Places to Visit — Homes of Princes and Sultans
To fully understand Istanbul architecture, you must first understand its rich history. Stop off at the Istanbul Archeological Museums — three buildings outside of the Tokapi Palace. The splendid churches and palaces you’re about to visit were built and decorated from the riches and spoils from conquests in other lands, some of which are among the one million artifacts on view.
A tour of the home of the Sultans for more than one thousand years begins at the Topkapi Palace, the Private residence of sultans and court and seat of the Turkish government. Once you enter the imperial gates, you feel as if you’re transported back in time. Built on the northern end of the first of three hills, you feel cut off from modernity overlooking the Sea of Marmara.
The Haiga Sophia is the inspiration for the Saint Sophias in Ukraine and churches and mosques elsewhere around the world. The Greek Eastern Orthodoxy basilica was completed under Emperor Justinian in 537 and remained the largest cathedral in the world for one thousand years. With its large round and smooth rotunda, the Byzantine structure resembles a mosque. In fact, it was the innovative architecture of the Byzantine church that influenced the architecture of the Ottoman Empire, according to architectural historians.
The struggle for religious dominance seen through the layers of architecture — Orthodox Christian, Catholic after the fourth crusade (1204), restoration to Orthodoxy (1261), a mosque under Ottoman rule (1453), a museum (1935) — continues with its recent controversial reversion to a mosque (2020).
The Byzantine mosaics covered during over five centuries of Muslim dominance are slowly being uncovered. They’re stunning in their luminescence, an effect cleverly deployed to connect the viewer with the divine and increase conversions to Christianity. The gold mosaic ceilings still glitter today.
After the appropriation of the Christian place of worship, Suleiman the Magnificent set out to build a more impressive mosque in the Islamic architectural style the Süleymaniye Mosque (1550) with octagonal mausoleums and four peripits. Inside, the mosque is a huge open space lit by hundreds of windows.
Unique Architectural Experiences
For a spiritual experience, visit the Blue Mosque, featuring over 200 stained glass windows and 20,000 ceramic tiles, and six towering minarets. Called the Blue Mosque because of its dominant use of blue in the tiles and stained glass, when the morning light shines through the 200 stained glass windows, the blue aura is magnificent.
The Basilica Cistern, or Sunken Palace, is an opportunity to see how this 4th century major water reservoir (rediscovered in the 16th century) channeled water from the Byzantine aqueducts to the palaces in Istanbul.
Inside the Chore Church (4th c.), an emblematic Byzantine architecture turned into a mosque in the 16th century, you’ll find some of the oldest Christian mosaics and frescoes, and columns from the Temple of the Sun in Rome and Temple of Artemis in Ephyseus.
The Dolmabahçe Palace (1856) was built with the modern conveniences of the time and housed six sultans until the caliphate was abolished in 1924. On the Bosporus Strait the structure uses Ottoman architecture mixed with Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical.
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We hope you enjoyed the second city guide taking you on a tour of architectural wonders around the world. If you missed our first city guide with culinary stops around the world, make sure you read it to discover delicious food destinations. In our next guide, we’ll whisk you away to castles, some located where you’ll least expect it.
If this second city guide has you longing to see these amazing examples of architecture, book your next trip with Dtravel.
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