Minecraft survival world builds

In the Deep Dark.

I wanted all my major builds to be close to each other and when Minecraft added the deep dark to the game it gave me another layer of space to build in. I used a lot of TNT to blow out a very large cavern directly under Cave town, once I had started constuction it turned out my cavern was only about half the size it needed to be and I had to dig the rest out. I had chosen to copy a masterpiece to about scale and with that I had set myself a very laborious task.

Constuction

My Hagia Sophia is a ruin. I wanted it to seem like Earth had swallowed it whole and that it had been sealed off and slowly decaying for a couple of centuries. I used all the varieties of deep-slate blocks and some black-stone for the walls and columns. I used weathered copper for the domes exterior. For the domes ceilings I used a big mix of ore blocks. I started the build in March 2022 and think that real world events must have played a big part in my decisions on what I would build. I knew that using dark materials in a dark cavern wouldn’t give me much to Instagram.

For most of my other builds, when I’m working out what to do, I look at an architectural style, a culture and a few prominent buildings and then use my own thoughts to come up with something that I like. It was silly to think that that would work with a copy of the Hagia Sophia. I also discovered that the real and hidden beauty of the Hagia Sophia is in the complex geometry. I didn’t want to try to do a paint by numbers job on it and still wanted to do it by eye. But both eyes were going to be pushed and quite badly strained by the end of this one.

Exterior

I had first planned to build the full building but as my idea was that the build would be a partial ruin and that the scale of the full building was truly massive I chose to just build the most interesting central part of it and leave the outer buildings as piles of blocks. It still turned out quite a large build and as the exterior started to take shape I soon realised that you couldn’t really see anything against the black cavern walls anyway. This build was going to have to be all about the interior.

For convenience I also put in a bubble lift on each side of the building. They go straight up to the castle with an exit point at the cave town. The builds are all perfectly vertically aligned at their centre’s. Also used a lot of drop-stone and lush cave blocks and stuff for most of the scenery around the building.

Interior

I’m quite happy with the look of the inside of the building. It’s a very dark place which creates quite a nice setting for the domes ceiling.

Comparison

As this is supposed to be a copy of a very famous building here are a few comparison shots.

Close

A dark build in a dark place. I’d like to say that it was fun to try and copy the Hagia Sophia, but apart from the main dome ceiling it really wasn’t. I might return to it one day – It could become a death trap Wither temple- I have more plains for it. I just never really seem to want to spend much time down there in the dark.

My final thought is about the real Hagia Sophia and that I’ve learned that it is really a wonder.

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