Experts Think the Hagia Sophia Is in Danger. They’ve Got a Plan to Protect It From Earthquakes
Turkey is located near two fault lines, leaving the 1,500-year-old structure vulnerable to damage. Architects and engineers will be investigating how to best preserve it
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The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is about to get a makeover. In light of recent earthquakes in Turkey, experts fear the 1,500-year-old mosque is structurally vulnerable, and the Turkish government has ordered a renovation.
Turkey is located near two fault lines, making the country especially susceptible to earthquakes. In 2023, powerful quakes killed more than 53,000 people in southeastern Turkey. Earlier this year, a 6.2-magnitude quake rocked Istanbul, injuring more than 150. Shortly after, architect Hasan Fırat Diker rushed to the Hagia Sophia to check for damage.
“In the most terrifying scenario, an earthquake will shake the entire structure,” Diker tells the Guardian’s Ruth Michaelson. “The main arch connecting the main dome and semi-domes could tremble, and there might be cracks that occur.”
Diker is one of the overseers of the Hagia Sophia’s upcoming restoration. As he explains to the Guardian, the building’s large central dome is visibly uneven, and it’s supported by four columns of unequal dimensions. The structure’s semi-domes are attached to the main one by fragile joints.
The history of the Hagia Sophia (which means “Holy Wisdom”) stretches back to the year 360, when a Christian church was built in the city of Constantinople (now Istanbul). The church was damaged in 404, rebuilt several years later and destroyed again in 532.
Finally, Justinian I, the leader of the Byzantine Empire, commissioned another rebuild. The grand structure, finished in 537, is the one that remains today. The building has long suffered from natural disasters: Its original dome partially collapsed in an earthquake in 558 and was rebuilt soon after.
After the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453, it converted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Many years later, in 1935, the Turkish government declared the structure a museum. It was reclassified as a mosque once again in 2020.
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The Hagia Sophia’s upcoming refurbishment may be “one of the greatest restorations of the current period in Turkey,” Diker tells the Guardian. A team of government-appointed engineers, architects and art historians will begin by stripping a layer of lead that covers the main dome and looking for ways to strengthen the connections between it and the semi-domes. They’ll also look for ways to improve the main pillars and subterranean supports.
Diker adds that the structure has been repaired on several occasions over its long history, causing “layers of buildup on the dome’s surface.” Once workers remove the dome’s lead covering, they’ll know more about the condition of interior layers.
The project will “open an important page in the book of Hagia Sophia,” Asnu Bilban Yalcin, a Byzantine art historian at Istanbul University, tells Reuters’ Ali Kucukgocmen. “It is truly a structure full of surprises because sometimes things develop in a way we do not expect. That is, you design and plan it, but when you open it, things may develop differently.”
Workers will install a tower crane on the building’s eastern facade, as Mehmet Selim Okten, an engineer at Mimar Sinan University who’s also overseeing the project, tells the Associated Press’ Robert Badendieck and Mehmet Guzel.
“Then we will cover the top of this unique structure with a protective frame system,” he adds. “That way, we can work more safely and examine the building’s layers academically, including damage it suffered from fires and earthquakes in the 10th and 14th centuries.”
Interior scaffolding will allow tourists and worshippers to continue visiting the mosque as usual, and a special exterior cover will protect the dome’s exposed surface from heat and rain. Experts are also hoping that the work may reveal older murals from previous periods in the Hagia Sophia’s layered history.
“Hagia Sophia is amazing. It’s one of the world’s most important monuments,” Rupert Wegerif, an education scholar at the University of Cambridge, tells the AP. “It seems really important that they are going to strengthen it in case of earthquakes and preserve it.”
