During the final decades of Ottoman sovereignty, Sultanahmet Square and its environs underwent considerable change. In 1863 the Ottoman royal family moved from Topkapi Palace, which had, for four centuries, served as the imperial residence and the administrative seat of the Empire, to Dolmabahge Palace, located further north, along the Bosphorus shore. The historic peninsula […]

Each ‘misprision’ of Stonehenge mentioned above, is a way of understanding the stones, which remain the same object throughout. In each understand­ing they are refracted through a different set of cultural knowledge and memories, so that each produces a different experience of Stonehenge. Geoffrey of Monmouth had a different experience of Stonehenge from Inigo Jones, […]

Let me now turn to the detail of the cathedral’s north fagade and the northern part of the cloister (Figures 4.4 and 4.8), where the frame of reference will be determined not by distant and varied secular structures but, rather, by immediate and consistent ecclesiastical institutions. In the thirteenth century, the north fagade was completely […]

The parade had a short life, but nonetheless (according to polls carried out later that year) it was the most memorable event of the bicentennial. It was also shocking to many. The national anthem was sung by Jessye Norman, a black American-born opera singer. That night, France was no longer repre­sented by the traditional blonde […]

Istanbul began to emerge from Ankara’s shadow as the country’s prime city in the 1950s. The urban development that accommodated the city’s phenom­enal industrial and financial expansion took place mostly outside the historic peninsula, which was densely packed with old neighbourhoods and landmarks. Meanwhile, even though it was home to Turkey’s most prominent cultural heritage […]