City of Countless Names- Kassim Pasha p2

As we move deeper into the naval quarter of Constatinople, Kassim Pasha, we get a closer look at some locations of note.

Piyale Pasha Mosque

After his father-in-law, Sultan Selim II, named him vizier, Admiral Payale Pasha turned his attention to improving Kassim Pasha. He planned a grand canal connecting the quarter’s northern end to the Golden Horn with a mosque at its head. The excavation for the canal never started, but the construction of his mosque finished in 1565 overseen by Sinan, the great Ottoman architect.

Piyale Pasha Mosque sits surrounded by a charming grove of tall cypress trees in the most northern end of Kassim Pasha, near Tatavla. Its distance from the Golden Horn leaves it unknown to most touring sightseers. The neighborhood surrounding it is often referred to as Piyale Pasha after this unusual mosque. Piyale Pasha is the largest mosque north of the Golden Horn, and only one of two in the whole city to have more than a single dome.  Six domes of equal size ordered in two rows and a single tall minaret on the mosque’s northwestern side crown its white rectangular edifice. The mosque had a much larger complex of buildings, but now only the mosque and the octagonal tomb of Piyale Pasha and his family remains.

Inside, two slender pillars rise from the center, supporting the complex of domes. Intricate stain-glassed windows and Iznik tiles with bright blues and oranges give the interior a dazzling beauty.

The irregular absence of the large lunnette (a French term describing their half-moon shape) tiled panels above certain windows tarnishes the sanctity of the mosque. Art collectors and souvenir hunters took most of them, and a few recently appeared in European museums.

Taskizak Shipyard

Taskizak Shipyard, the most innovative and marvelous shipyard in Constantinople, sits near the eastern edge of Has Keui’s shore, just south of Aynalıkavak Palace. Since the days of Sultan Mahmud II’s attempts to modernize the Ottoman navy, Taskızak Shipyard has been a cradle of new methods, machines, and magics. Among its innovations are: Constantinople’s first floating dock (1827), the first steamship built in Constantinople (1830), the first ship’s engine powered by a jinn (1836), the first jinn-powered ship destroyed by a jinn (1836, same day), and the first submersible of the Ottoman Navy, Mahmud II (1840). Although Taskizak’s shipwrights strive to provide the Ottoman navy with superior ships, the Ottoman treasury cannot afford the replication of their complex machines and enchantments on a large scale at this time.

Taskizak’s shipwrights busily work under a veil of secrecy on a new project. A massive metal frame takes shape, and a few French Thaumaturgists have been spotted inspecting the work.

The most famous feature of Taskizak Shipyard is its massive crane with a scaffolding of strange black metal. The shipwrights call it Kara Bazarlu because of its dark sheen and the unnerving way it sometimes seems to move of its own volition.