Alan Vincent Viera

I chose the first image. I started my research by searching the name of this church. I used the hints that Charlie gave us. It was a little bit hard to find, but finally, Wikipedia saved the day. This church is named Hagia Sophia or the Holy Wisdom Church in English, or in Spanish, “La Iglesia de Santa Sofia”.
Here are some pictures of the different perspectives.

It was constructed arounde 360 AC by the Constantine emperor and destroyed by to fires. It was reconstructed 530 Ac by the Justinian emperor. It is decorated with the byzantine techniques. In 1453, the Turks built the 4 pilars called minarets.

The architecture of this church is quite interesting. Some of the basic structures are


Dome- It is a hemispherical roof. It has one central vault and some other half-domes around it.
Pillars- A pillar is a column that is used to hold another structure. Specially, it has 4 central pillars that are supporting the central dome.

Arch- A curved construction used to support the weigh above it.

Ground plan of Greek cross- Is basically the way it was constructed. Making a cross in the floor


My opinion about this church is that is an awesome. It reflects the greatness of Constantinopla. I see it like Arabic influence, I don’t know, like the ones that appeared in the Aladdin movie.
It’s amazing that it was burned twice and then reconstructed. In my opinion, if I could restructure it, I would paint it with some other colors, more brilliant.



Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia
http://www.business-with-turkey.com/guia-estambul/santasfn.shtml
http://rebueno.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/tumadre.jpg
http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/galeriasb/europa/turquia/Istambul-Santa-Sofia2.jpg
http://www.artehistoria.jcyl.es/obrmaestras/jpg/CDS11092.jpg
http://www.monografias.com/trabajos55/iglesia-santa-sofia/Image13780.gif
http://rebueno.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/la-arquitectura-de-la-basilica-de-santa-sofia/