Shaping the Past: Architecture as a Carrier of Meaning in the Restorations of Pantokrator Monastery / Zeyrek Camii

Abstract

The Monastery of Christ Pantokrator (now Zeyrek Camii) was founded in Constantinople (now Istanbul) the early twelfth century by John II Komnenos (r. 1118-1143) and his wife Irene. Following the Ottoman conquest, the complex was converted into a madrassa and then a mosque, which was accompanied by additions including a minaret, mihrab, altered rooflines, and other modifications to accommodate and reinforce the building’s new cultural and religious context. The modern restoration history of the complex also reveals a deliberate series of architectural choices. In 1964, a Dumbarton Oaks-sponsored campaign reinstalled some scalloped, Byzantine-style eaves, reversing earlier Ottoman interventions. In 1997, the first half of a UNESCO-funded restoration focused largely on structural stabilization and repair. The project’s continuation, from 2001-2005, selectively prioritized Ottoman adaptations through reconstruction and reintroduction without removing Byzantine elements. This approach foreshadowed the major 2006-2018 campaign, undertaken by the Turkish Ministry of Pius Foundations, which enacted sweeping alterations to produce a nearly “like new” version of the monument’s nineteenth-century Ottoman appearance, which entailed reversals, demolitions, and obscurations of Byzantine remnants, as well as speculative reconstructions of long-gone Ottoman structures. These architectural decisions reveal the broader prioritization of Ottoman identity over Byzantine heritage and the construction of historical and artistic achievements as fundamentally Ottoman and Muslim. By examining the Pantokrator/Zeyrek restorations in this context, I will argue that recent architectural interventions result from, and actively contribute to, this modern political narrative by selectively elevating one historical layer of the building while minimizing others.