Istanbul Turkey, structures that interested me.

Are you kidding?  We spent two nights and I would need months for Istanbul buildings.  I spent 4 hours in AyaSophia, until they were closing and wasn't finished.  I probably could just stand and sit around the building all day.  1500 years old.  Largest church for like 800 years, then a mosque, now a museum.  Tons of words and pictures out there, but here is some stuff that struck me.

Well, it is so big it is not easy with a point and click camera to get a picture of the building.

 And the detail of some buttresses.  masonry perfection.

  This is ceiling in a corridor .  Note that the the voussoirs (the individual arches) run parallel to the walls and not perpendicular as is most often the case.  This is the way I also build vaults, and people point that out implying I am doing it wrong.

a groined vault on the upstairs balcony.

 barrel vault, painted, note the rods to hold the walls from spreading.

 inside it was even more impossible to get a picture of everything.  on the top you see one of the two half domes on each end.  On top of them sits the central dome!  It is huge!  look closely and you see the chandeliers are supported from the ceiling with steel rods.  Each one with the rods must way a ton.

 Marble floors

 How would you like to work with these pieces?

 Someone checking how it was made? or how it is faring?

 Detail of above.

 Column moved off center!