The Origin and Significance of Wood in Architecture

The origin of the word is wood, which is the plural of opium (wood, timber) in Arabic. Wood is one of the oldest and most common building materials that people have used for building since prehistoric times. It started in the wooden trunks that met the sheltering needs of the ancient people, then met with reed, reed materials and finally Wood masonry and carcass (structural skeleton) system was adopted in Turkey.

Various pieces found in Pazirik excavations revealed that Central Asian Turks have been interested in wood since ancient times. Among the artifacts belonging to the Huns preserved in the Leningrad Museum, a sarcophagus made of carved tree trunk and some horse harnesses are important. The stone reliefs on the façade of the Umayyads and later the Abbasids were used in the same way with little changes. The door of El-Azher Mosque dated to the 11th century and the wooden works in the El-Hakim Mosque are the most vivid examples of this.

The Seljuks were also very interested in wood. As they used it as a building material in architecture, they created wooden pulpit, lectern, lectern, Qur'an enclosure, drawer, sarcophagus and other works of high artistic value. They adopted craftsmanship as an art. The Alaeddin Mosque of the XII-XIV centuries, the minbars of the Malatya Ulucami and Kayseri Ulucami, and the window wings of the Ankara Haci Bayram Tomb and Birgi Ulucami can be cited as examples.

In the 16th Century, workshops working on wood were established in Topkapı Palace and many masters were trained from here. Afyon, Sivrihisar Ulu Mosque, Ankara Arslanhane Mosque and Beyşehir Eşrefoğlu Mosque Anadolu They are the first examples of wooden works in Istanbul. In addition to mansions, mansions, and mansions in Istanbul, Ankara, Kütahya, Kula, Safranbolu, Mudurnu houses and civil architecture are examples of wooden construction art.