Turkey plans to rebuild religious school next to Hagia Sophia
Proposal comes amid talk of turning the museum and World Heritage Site into a working mosque once again.
The Turkish government plans to reconstruct a demolished madrasa (religious school) next to Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia Museum, a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1985.
But the local branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos) strongly protests these plans, calling the proposed construction a “new fake historic
The Art Newspaper
February 25, 2014
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monument” that would undermine the area’s significance. Hagia Sophia was built as an Orthodox church during the sixth century and converted into a mosque in the 15th century; shortly afterwards, the first madrasa was constructed to its north.
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