Architecture
The building lies on a slope which overlooks the Golden Horn, and rests on a platform which is the ceiling of a cistern. It is closely hemmed in all sides, making an adequate view of the exterior difficult. Its masonry consists of brick and stone, and uses the technique of recessed brick; it is the oldest extant building of Constantinople where this technique can be observed, which is typical of the Byzantine architecture of the middle empire. In this technique, alternate coarses of bricks are mounted behind the line of the wall, and are plunged in a mortar bed. Due to that, the thickness of the mortar layers is about three times greater than that of the brick layers. The brick tiles on its roof are unique among the churches and mosques of Istanbul, which are otherwise covered with lead.
The plan belongs to the cross-in-square (or quincunx) type with a central dome and four vaulted crossarms, a sanctuary to the east and an esonarthex and an exonarthex to the west. This appears to be an addition of the Palaiologan period, substituting an older portico, and is divided into three bays. The lateral ones are surmounted by cross vaults, the central one by a dome.
A unique feature of this building is the U-shaped gallery which runs over the narthex and the two western bays of the quincunx. The gallery has windows opening towards both the naos and the crossarm. It is possible that the gallery was built for the private use of the Empress-Mother.
As in many of the surviving Byzantine churches of Istanbul, the four columns which supported the crossing were replaced by piers, and the colonnades at either ends of the crossarms were filled in. The piers divide the nave into three aisles. The side aisles lead into small clover-leaf shaped chapels to the east, connected to the sanctuary and ended to the east, like the sanctuary, with an apse. These chapels are the prothesis and diaconicon. The Ottomans resurfaced the apses and built a minaret, which does not exist any more.
The dome, which during the Ottoman period was given a helmet-like shape, recovered its original scalloped roofline in the restoration of 1970. This is typical of the churches of the Macedonian period. The tent-like roofing of the gallery has been also replaced with tiles that follow the curves of the vaulting.
The exterior has occasional decorative motifs, like sunbursts, meanders, basket-wave patterns and cloisonnés: the latter motif is typical of the Greek architecture of this period but unknown elsewhere in Constantinople. Of the original interior, nothing remains but some marble moldings, cornices, and doorframes.
Despite its architectural significance, the building is still one among the least studied monuments of Istanbul.
Read more about this topic: Eski Imaret Mosque
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“Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind is opened, now one color or form or gesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had been emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)