A brilliant example of Islamic Renaissance art, distinguished for its originality, is the only one of the city’s surviving mosques that dates back to the second half of the 17th century. It was built in honour of the first garrison of Chania, Kioutsouk Hassan, and after research by the 13th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities it was found that in its place there was a small one-room temple.
The mosque is a cubic building covered by a large hemispherical dome without a drum, supported by four ornate stone arches. On the west and north sides it is surrounded by a gallery covered by six small domes without a drum. Initially the gallery was open, as is customary in mosques. Around 1880 the gallery was converted into a closed one with arched openings and a strong neoclassical style.
The Kioutsuk (small) Hassan mosque or Giali Tzamisi (the mosque of the yalos), as it is commonly called, was the work of an Armenian architect, who had built another similar mosque in the village of Spaniako in Selinos. The mosque, in the courtyard of which there were palm trees and tombs of Pasha and Genitsar, ceased to operate in 1923. Today it is restored, but without the small but picturesque minaret that was demolished in 1920 (according to others in 1939).
Due to the war, after many adventures and with the initiative and care of the late Professor Nik. B. Tomadakis, the Archaeological Museum of Chania was moved there, while later the mosque was used as a warehouse, a museum of folk art, the Information Office of the National Tourism Organization and recently as a venue for events and exhibitions.
