A Catholic Church in an Islamic Capital: Historicism and Modernity in the St Antoine Church

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the architecture of the St Antoine Church within its cultural and historical framework. Giulio Mongeri, along with others, played a significant role in the architecture of the Westernization period, both with his buildings and in his teaching career at the Imperial School of Fine Arts ( Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi ) in Istanbul. The analyses put forward in the chapter clearly show that the architecture of the St Antoine Church combined the local architectural tradition with the Western context while, at the same time, referring to both Historicism and Modernity. Since Gothic Revival was implemented as the main architectural style, the St Antoine complex has been looked upon as an eclecticist structure through the stylistic perspective common in the architectural debate, which seems to have ignored the fact that it employed an innovative constructional system. Keywords: Giulio Mongeri; Gothic Revival; Historicism; Imperial School of Fine Arts; Istanbul; Modernity; St Antoine Church; Westernization period