Through the Markets and Bazaars - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 159

Osman. It was the first large and ambitious Ottoman building to
exemplify the new baroque style introduced from Europe. Like most
of the baroque mosques, it consists essentially of a square room
covered by a large dome resting on four arches in the walls; the form
of these arches is strongly emphasized, especially on the exterior. In
plan, the present building has an oddly cruciform appearance because
of the two side-chambers at the east end, and it has a semicircular
apse for the mihrab. On the west it is preceded by a porch with nine
bays, and this is enclosed by an extremely curious courtyard which
can only be described as a semicircle with seven sides and nine domed
bays! At the north-east corner of the mosque an oddly-shaped ramp,
supported on wide arches, leads to the sultan's loge. (Note that a
large number of the arches here and elsewhere in the building are
semicircular instead of pointed in form, as they are generally in earlier
mosques.) The whole structure is erected on a low terrace to which
irregularly placed flights of steps give access.
Nuruosmaniye Camii is altogether an astonishing building, not
wholly without a certain perverse genius. But its proportions are
awkward and ungainly and its oddly-shaped members seem to have
no organic unity but to be the result of an arbitrary whim of the
architect. (He seems to have been a Greek by the name of Simeon.)
Also the stone from which it is built is harsh and steel-like in texture
and dull in colour. All things considered, the mosque must be
pronounced a failure, but a charming one.
MAHMUT PAŞA CAMİİ
Leaving the mosque courtyard by the gate at the far end, we turn left
on the street outside. A little way along, just past the first turning
on the left, we veer right into a picturesque little square, one side of
which is lined with old wooden houses. This is the outer courtyard
of Mahmut Paşa Camii, one of the very oldest mosques in the city.
Mahmut Paşa Camii is interesting not only because of its great age,
but because it is a very fine example of the typical Bursa style of
mosque structure. Built in 1462, only nine years after the Conquest,
it was founded by Fatih's famous Grand Vezir, Mahmut Paşa. This
distinguished man was of Byzantine origin: his paternal grandfather,