Daylight illumination in mosques and case studies

Throughout the history, it has been seen that first attempts at building mosques where Muslims can worship together were started with the spread of Islamic religion. Mosques were built depending on the factors such as climate, topography and cultural characteristics of the region they live in, structure materials and construction technologies for the given time period. Over the years, along with the changing plan schemes, building sizes and building envelope layouts, quantity and quality of sunlight coming through windows have also been changed. The aim of the present work is to determine the properties of the mosques daylight illuminance arrangements, to mark out the relevant principles, and to show their effects on the users in view of these principles. In this context, natural lighting conditions of three mosques which were built in different time periods and have different building shells in Istanbul are analyzed with the results of objective and subjective researches. By comparing the results, the existence of daylight was examined.