week 7: Jen Rohrs; Hagia Sophia

I personally think that Muslim Mosques and buildings similar to that are the most beautiful pieces of architecture.  For the most part I think that it is because their rounded elaborate forms are so different from the usual colonial architecture that surrounds me in Boston, where I live. They seem so different and foreign to me that I can't help but to think that they are more beautiful than the traditional Christian churches that I am used to seeing.  Even going to Italy to the the longitudinal planned basilicas was not as interesting to me as traveling half an hour from where I live on a high school field trip to a local Mosque.  I think that because these buildings are so foreign to me i figured that the Hagia Sophia was also just as removed from my own cultural framework.  However, when I was reading the article by Krautheimer it hit me that the only real changes that the Muslim people made the the site were the minarets.  It seems strange that the rest of the structure, which seems so different than how I think of traditional Christian churches, started as a regular basilica.  It just seems strange to me that this building appears so different than my stereotypical ideas of what a basilica should look like.  And that even in its original form it maintained that elaborate decoration and dome shape. This applies to other centralized plans of architecture as well, but I think that it sticks out more with the Hagia Sophia because of how different its use is today even tho it maintains the dome form of its original purpose.