• Hagia Sophia restoration to protect 1,500-year-old Unesco ‘masterpiece’

    Istanbul landmark’s most extensive works in years will include efforts to prevent earthquake damageStanding beneath the stone archways, grand murals and filagree lamps of the Hagia Sophia, the architect Hasan Fırat Diker reflects on his vocation: the protection of a fragile structure that is both Turkey’s grandest mosque and perhaps its most contentious building. He is overseeing some of the most intense restoration and preservation works in the Hagia Sophia’s nearly 1,500

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