Hagia Sophia

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            Located in Istanbul, Turkey, 523- 537
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Opinion: Hagia Sofia is one of the supreme accomplishments of world architecture. I hope to one day travel to Istanbul and see in person its floating dome and be awed by the halo of light that appears to support it. Just looking at the pictures sparked my interest in visiting Turkey- a country that had never been on my radar before. 

Theory: Hagia Sofia was built in Constantinople for Justinian by Anthemus of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus between 532 and 537. It has a huge dome that is one hundred and eighty feet in diameter. The minarets were actually added later. Although the outside is modest, the interior is spectacular with walls and floors covered with colored stones from all over the world. What distinguishes Hagia Sophia from similar Roman buildings, such as the Pantheon, is the canopy-like dome. With windows at the dome's base, light floods into Hagia Sophia, seeming as if the halo of light is supporting the dome itself and giving the monument a mystical quality. Two feats of the Byzantines allowed for such innovations: pendentives and squinches. Both pendentives and squniches solved the problem of setting a round dome over a square space and allowed for an even higher dome. (Gardner, Pages 331-332)