E. I. KONONENKO, Candidate of Art History State Institute of Art Studies Keywords: Turkey, Taksim Square, modern mosque, architecture, state and Islam, Ottoman tradition, creative competitions As soon as the violent protests of Istanbul residents on Taksim Square in June-July 2013, caused, according to the official version, by the deforestation of Gezi Park, subsided, the question of why this park should have been cut down at all began to be actively discussed on the Internet, including in Russian. A number of Islamic websites published articles about the approval of the project for the construction of a mosque in Taksim, the construction of which, according to its architect Ahmet Wefik Alp, was previously planned on the site of Gezi Park [1]. Discussions about the construction of a mosque in Taksim have been going on for a long time, and they have always found both supporters and opponents, inevitably becoming politicized and turning into a discussion "republic and Islam"that is relevant for modern Turkey. It is clear that the "Taksim Mosque" is not only another religious building, but, above all, a symbol of the relationship between the state and Islam. However, we are not interested in the political impact of the events in Taksim, but in the architectural future of the Turkish mosque - what should it become in the XXI century and what monument can be decorated with the main square of Istanbul? Given the significance of Taksim Square, the mosque that may appear here will turn out to be a kind of" super project " that will turn into an architectural symbol of Turkish Islam and will certainly turn out to be a model for numerous imitators. CHOOSING LANDMARKS Proclaimed in 1923, the Turkish Republic clearly declared its secularism and as a result of a series of reforms (the elimination of the Caliphate, the abolition of the Sharia court, education reform, the transition to the Gregorian calendar and the Latin alphabet) formed a kind of "state Islam", whose actions "ou ... Read more