Niğde Karatlı Mosque — Cut-Stone Mosque and Minaret

In the stone architecture of Central Anatolia, mosque facades are usually clad in cut stone in yellow and beige tones. Adding a white minaret to that texture is risky: the wrong tone makes the minaret look foreign to the building.

At Karatlı Mosque we resolved that with gold-coloured band details. The bands form a transition between the warm tone of the cut stone and the white shaft, and the muqarnas work at the şerefe speaks the same language as the stone carving on the mosque.

Matching colour and texture

The colour of the minaret surface is chosen against the stone tone of the mosque facade. From a distance the white shaft reads as a silhouette, while close to, the gold bands and the muqarnas shadows beneath the şerefe merge with the decorative language of the building. It is a design decision that works correctly at both scales.

The şerefe detail

The şerefe ring uses hanging rows of muqarnas with a pierced balustrade above. Because the balustrade openings were left as negatives in the formwork, no drilling or cutting was needed afterwards.