Around Beyazit and Sehzadebas - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 181

to the imperial loge. The plan of the interior is an octagon inscribed
in a rectangle, all but the western pair of supporting columns being
engaged in the walls; the latter support a gallery along the west wall.
All the walls are heavily revetted with variegated marbles, yellow,
red, blue and other colours, which give a somewhat gaudy efect.
In the west wall of the gallery there are panels or medallions of opus
sectile , in which are used not only rare marbles but even semi-precious
stones such as onyx, jasper and lapis lazuli. A rectangular projecting
apse contains the mihrab of sumptuous marbles. The mimber is of
the same materials, while the kürsü or preacher's chair is a rich work
of carved wood heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl - altogether an
extravagant and entertaining decor!
Like all of the other imperial mosques, Laleli Camii was surrounded
by the many attendant buildings of a civic centre, some of which
have unfortunately succumbed to time. On Ordu Caddesi there
still remains the pretty sebil with bronze grilles and the somewhat
sombre octagonal türbe in which are buried Sultan Mustafa III and
his son, the unfortunate Selim III. On the terrace inside the enclosure
is the imaret. This is an attractive little building with a very strange
plan indeed, quite impossible to describe: it must be inspected.
Unfortunately, the other institutions in the külliye - the medrese and
the hamam - have disappeared.
The street just to the east of the mosque, Fethi Bey Caddesi,
leads at the second turning on the left to a fascinating han which
probably belongs to the Laleli complex. This was formerly known as
Çukur Çeşme Hanı, the Han of the Sunken Fountain, but its present
residents call it Büyük Taş Han, the Big Stone Han. The plan of this
too is almost indescribable. We enter through a very long vaulted
passage, with rooms and a small court leading from it, and emerge
into a large courtyard, in the middle of which a ramp descends
into what were once the stables. Around this porticoed courtyard
open rooms of most irregular shape, and other passages lead to two
additional small courts with even more irregular rooms! One seems
to detect in this the ingenious but perverse mind of Mehmet Tahir
Ağa. he han has now been restored and houses a restaurant and
shops.