The latest in the popular Watermark Architectural Guides series, covering the architecture of this huge and ancient city from Byzantine ruins to modern high-rise.

This guide looks at a broad range of architecture in Istanbul, providing an understanding of the historical and political contexts that have shaped it. It focuses on significant projects built since 1990 as well as providing practical information for vistors.

Architecture and urban planning have always been used by political regimes to stamp their ideologies upon cities, and this is especially the case in the modern Turkish Republic. By exploring Istanbul's modern architectural and urban history, Murat Gul highlights the dynamics of political and social change in Turkey from the late-Ottoman period until today. Looking beyond pure architectural styles or the physical manifestations of Istanbul's cultural landscape, he offers critical insight into how Turkish attempts to modernise have affected both the city and its population. Charting the diverse forces evident in Istanbul's urban fabric, the book examines late Ottoman reforms, the Turkish Republic's turn westward for inspiration, Cold War alliances and the AK Party's reaffirmation of cultural ties with the Middle East and the Balkans. Telltale signs of these moments - revivalist architecture drawing on Ottoman and Seljuk styles, 1930s Art Deco, post-war International Style buildings and the proliferation of shopping malls, luxurious gated residences and high-rise towers, for example - are analysed and illustrated in extensive detail.Connecting this rich history to present-day Istanbul, whose urban development is characterised anew by intense social stratification, the book will appeal to researchers of Turkey, its architecture and urban planning.

The mosques of Istanbul represent the splendour of Islamic architecture. Their central domes, rising above the skyline of the city, convey both the ideals and ambitions of powerful Ottoman Sultans and the brilliance of the architects who created them. Th