BRICK BY BRICK

THE WEIGHT OF HEAVEN: ON HELPING TO REPAIR HAGIA SOPHIA

NIELS MØLLER

November 6, 2026

In 1847, a Danish draftsman arrives in Constantinople to help repair Hagia Sophia. Between measurements, he records the building’s troubled history, news from home, and the difficulties of writing to a woman who may prefer not to hear from him. On the scaffolding, there are mosaics to copy and figures that refuse to agree. He had intended to be away for only a few months.

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Constantinople, April 1847

My name is Niels Møller. I am thirty-five, Danish, unmarried, and employed here to make drawings and assist with the repair of Hagia Sophia. The work is directed by the brothers Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati, under the patronage of Sultan Abdülmecid. I have met both brothers, though I doubt either could pick me out of a crowd without drawings under my arm.

My room is in Galata. There is a table, but one of its legs has been repaired badly and I have moved it against the wall. The light is good until about three.

I had not intended to come so far. In Copenhagen I prepared plans for a man who removed my name before submitting them. I do not mention this as a grievance; he also removed several mistakes. When I left his office, I thought I would travel for a few months, find work, and return in the autumn. A letter obtained in Trieste brought me here. I am still uncertain what its writer said about my abilities, since it was sealed, and the person who received it seemed to expect someone older.

Constantinople, mapped circa 1840. Galata is across the Golden Horn. Møller’s wrong turn is not marked.

May

There had been a proposed marriage. The proposal was mine. For some time afterward we continued to see each other, and I understood this to mean that the question remained open.

Anna said I attended to things in a way that made people feel they had interrupted. I explained that my work required concentration. She said she had noticed.

I have rehearsed this conversation often enough on the journey, usually improving my part in it. We had been sitting by the window. She was wearing a green dress I had not seen before, or had not noticed. I remember wanting to ask whether it was new, but by then she was saying something else and the moment had passed.

My family is from Korsør, where my father repairs boats. My mother keeps the accounts and writes the letters. I have sent them my address and a description of my room. I left out the business about the table. My father would want to know more about what was wrong with it.

June

My landlady thinks I do not eat enough. Her son, who speaks some English, has explained this twice. Yesterday she stood in the doorway until I had finished what she brought.

The walk to the work site still takes longer than it should. I recognize shops but confuse the streets between them. There is one turn at which I have been wrong so often that a man outside the shop there now points before I ask.

On my first day inside Hagia Sophia, I looked up too quickly and lost my balance. The man beside me took my arm. I would have liked to begin again, entering in a more composed manner, but he was already taking me to the others.

There were people working above us. I could hear them but could not see where they were standing.

Hagia Sophia, with carts in the foreground. The dome attracted more commentary, but the carts also had to work.

July

I have been copying a section. By the second afternoon my neck hurt, and I discovered that I had carried one measurement into the wrong column. The error was mine, though I spent some time hoping otherwise.

The dome rests through arches and pendentives on four great piers, with half-domes to the east and west. On paper the arrangement is clear. Standing beneath it, I have difficulty keeping the parts separate. I follow one curve and find myself looking at another, and then someone asks me for something.

I wanted the dates of the construction and have written them inside the back cover of my diary: begun in 532; inaugurated on December 27, 537. Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus were the architects. The first dome fell in 558, after earthquake damage, and the replacement was completed in 562, higher than before.

Five years to build it. I have spent three days on this section and must return to it tomorrow.

At work inside Hagia Sophia. Møller at the top has been spared the discussion at the bottom.

August

There were two earlier churches here. The first was built in 360; the second in 415. Both burned, the second during the disturbances of 532, after which Justinian ordered the present building.

I had thought Sophia was a woman. Fortunately I was corrected before arriving. Holy Wisdom. I had repeated the other account in Vienna to a woman who listened with great attention. I hope she has forgotten it.

Nothing from Denmark this week.

September

Yusuf has borrowed my pencil again. I number the stubs because a short one can disappear into the folds of a drawing and be thrown away with the waste. He considers this very amusing. Today he returned one marked with a number I had not assigned to it. I showed him the error, which amused him further.

The Harbaville Triptych, about 940–60. Heaven with folding doors. Unfortunately, it was taken to the Louvre, Paris, which is unwilling to give it a one-way ticket back to Istanbul.

We are working in a part of the building where the masonry disagrees with the drawing. Measurements taken a little to either side produce different results. I went back over mine and was told that the earlier figures would have been sufficient. This annoyed me more than it should have. If they were sufficient, I would have preferred to be told before climbing up again.

I brought the problem home. My landlady had used the back of yesterday’s sheet for a list, and I could not find the smaller sketch anywhere. I asked her son to explain that I need these papers for my work. He spoke to her, she answered at length, and he said she had understood. I suspect he omitted something.

At dinner she asked whether her ceiling was likely to fall. I had been looking at it. I said there was no reason to suppose so. She said that was how it had looked before I arrived.

November

Rain. My good coat is damp at the shoulders and will not dry properly. Today a visitor spoke about the sack of the city in 1204. He described the Fourth Crusade as though the men involved were personal acquaintances whose conduct had disappointed him. Hagia Sophia became a Latin cathedral and remained one until 1261. I knew the dates, or had known them once. I did not know what to say when he asked what I thought. He assumed, because I was a Christian, that I would have an explanation. I said I was Danish. This did not help. Later I looked for a small tool I was certain someone had taken. It was under my coat.

February 1848

A support that offended me in the drawing makes more sense now that I have seen what bears upon it. I had suggested that it might be a later addition, as though this settled something. It is a later addition. It is also doing work. I ought to make a separate drawing of the junction; there is not enough room on the sheet.

The mosque has its own long history of repairs. After Mehmed took the city in 1453, the church was converted. The minarets were added over time, and later sultans continued the work. Sinan strengthened it in the sixteenth century. I am beginning to recognize some of these interventions, though I still have to ask which period a piece of masonry belongs to. The answers do not always agree. I find the minarets handsome when viewed from the water. Close to the building, I scarcely look at them. There is usually something I am late for.

April

My mother writes that my father is taking fewer repair jobs. He says the newer boats are poorly made. She says he has trouble with his hands.

Paul Underwood’s field notes, 1950. A century after Møller, the walls were still withholding information.

I read the letter at work and put it away. Then I took it out to see whether she had said one hand or both. She had written “his hands.” There was no further explanation. The rest concerned a neighbor, a payment not yet received, and the weather.

I have probably described my employment here in a way that makes it sound more important than it is. She will have read those passages aloud. I wish now I had written more about the ordinary work, which would interest my father: how materials are moved, how we reach the upper surfaces, the tools. There is a man here who can get a load through an opening I would swear was too narrow. My father would want to imagine that.

Mother asks me to send something small. For herself, I assume, though she does not say. I went into a shop and came out without buying anything. The man kept showing me larger objects.

September

Mosaics have been uncovered. Christian figures, some still bright in places, others damaged or difficult to make out. They are being examined and recorded before the figural images are covered again.

I had supposed they were all concealed when the church became a mosque. Apparently the coverings belong to different periods. There is much discussion about what was visible when, and I cannot follow all of it.

I was allowed to copy a small area of ornament. The work was awkward, and the light changed before I finished. At home I saw that I had straightened a line which was not straight, then adjusted the neighboring forms to suit it. It looked quite convincing. I shall have to do that portion again.

I wanted to go on looking when we were called away. That has stayed with me more than I expected: someone waiting for me, my things gathered too quickly, and the patch I had not finished examining.

That evening I took out Anna’s last letter. I know the order of its sentences, but there is one I keep reading, as if hoping that it might have changed.

January 1849

The large roundels bear the names of Allah, Muhammad, the first four caliphs, Hasan, and Husayn. I have written the names down in the order they were given to me. The calligrapher was Kazasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi.

From below I cannot read the inscriptions. I can distinguish forms I recognize, but by the time I think I have found a letter I am no longer certain where the next begins. Yusuf tried to explain one to me. We had to stop because he was needed elsewhere.

My Turkish has improved enough for us to disagree about small things. Before, we agreed almost continually.

Sunlight inside Hagia Sophia. For once, a useful intervention from above.

I wrote to Anna at Christmas. The first draft contained a long account of the restoration, which I removed. In the letter I sent, I asked whether she was well, and whether she was still living at the same address. She must be, if the letter is to reach her, but I could not think of another way to ask about her life without asking too much.

There has been no answer yet. It is early.

My father has written in his own hand. Enclosed was a drawing of a joint he thinks I might find useful. I have put it with my working papers. His letters are larger than they used to be, but the drawing is clear.

July

The work is nearly finished. Everyone is in a hurry. Instructions that once would have waited for the following morning are now brought after we have put our things away. Yesterday I unrolled the same drawing four times.

I have been offered further employment in the city. I asked about the pay, then about the duration. Neither answer was definite. At home there would be my old office, perhaps, or another like it. I have no wish to return to that particular desk.

Hagia Sophia after the Fossati restoration. Louis Haghe after Gaspare Fossati, 1852. The drawings were finally ready to show the client.

My mother asks when I am coming home. She has begun asking in every letter.

This evening I sorted my papers. There are more accounts than I expected, several drawings I no longer need, and one sheet whose measurements I cannot place. I have kept it. Yusuf’s pencil, the one with the false number, is there too. It is too short to use comfortably.

I must return a borrowed ruler and collect the wages still owing. Then I can ask about a passage. I have not accepted the offer of work, but I have not refused it either.

Before leaving, I want to stand below the dome once more. The last few weeks, I have scarcely looked up except when someone called.

Niels Møller was a Danish draftsman from Korsør who worked on the Fossati brothers’ restoration of Hagia Sophia between 1847 and 1849. He numbered his pencils and wrote occasionally to a woman named Anna. His diary is his only known literary work. Møller’s diary breaks off in July 1849. He appears to have returned to Denmark soon afterward. Nothing further is known of him.

Cover image: Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. Five years to build. The maintenance has taken longer.