Mahmutbey Mosque (Kasaba Village)

Mahmutbey Mosque, located in Kasaba Village about 18 kilometres from the centre of Kastamonu, was built in 1366 by Mahmud Bey, a bey of the Candaroğulları. It is one of the examples of mosques with wooden columns and wooden ceilings (hypostyle) that have survived to the present day in their original form. According to the inscription on the portal, the building's master was Abdullah, son of the painter Mahmud. In 2023 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as "Wooden Hypostyle Mosques of Medieval Anatolia".

Wooden structural system. The building's load-bearing frame is constructed with wooden columns, beams and joints. Such wooden connections give the structure flexibility and increase its resistance to earthquakes.

Hand-painted decoration. The ceiling, beams, brackets and column capitals are decorated with hand-painted ornamentation made with root dyes. The red tones were obtained from madder root, the blue tones from indigo, and the yellow tones from plant sources such as the rose of Sharon.

Kündekâri door. The original door leaves are kündekâri work made with geometric joints without the use of glue or nails. The original leaves are preserved at the Kastamonu Ethnography Museum (Liva Paşa Mansion), and a copy is in the mosque.

Shooting note. The series was shot on the morning of 13 October 2020, mostly with the Fujifilm GFX 100 and the GF23mm f/4 lens. Most of the interior frames were taken at f/8 with long exposures between 1 and 8 seconds; the door and portico frames were shot with the GFX 50R and the GF50mm.