Transformation of a Worship Place: Hortacı Mosque (Rotonda)

Abstract

In this study, Hortacı Mosque in Thessaloniki, Greece, is examined with its historical background and physical changes. After the building was built as a Roman temple in the 4th century, it was used as a church with the adoption of Christianity and as a mosque when the Ottoman Empire established its sovereignty in Thessaloniki. It was converted into a church again after Thessaloniki passed to Greece. While these transformations that it has gone through throughout history have physical traces on the building, it also has an importance in the interpretation of the past with its social and cultural reflections. The fact that they are specialized structures makes the transformation and re-functioning processes of places of worship worth examining. Rotonda (Hortacı Mosque), which can be visited as a museum today, is one of them, and within the scope of this article, the literature review process for data collection was carried out and researched. The building is discussed in the physical, cultural and religious context with the transformations it has undergone throughout history. As a result, the transformation between religious building types was evaluated in terms of religious rituals, spatial arrangements and orientations, architectural elements and symbolic meanings, and similarities and differences were revealed.