sarajevo crossing a divide
partition | national library by lejla odobasic
reconciliation bosnia par tition
identity urbicide
The unification of Europe , amalgamating geographical and economic boundaries means each EU country must maintain an autonomous identity while belonging to a larger whole. In the Balkans this process is happening in reverse – to establish and legitimise a distinct cultural and political landscape, the pixilisation and fragmentation of common cultures and languages is taking place. Balkanisation describes the fragmenting of a state into small and often hostile units; it implies a policy of ‘divide and rule’ whereby the strength of a united country is diluted by internal division. While the term came to prominence in the aftermath of the First World War, its resonance has resurfaced in light of recent Balkan politics and the break up of former Yugoslavia. While Yugoslavia has already shattered into six different countries – seven with the recently independent Kosovo – further Balkanisation is occurring within heterogeneous regions such as present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. This country’s once varied pan-Yugoslav combination of Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox has, in the aftermath of the controversial 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, split into two segregated political spheres — Repbublica Sprka and the Federation of Croats and Bosniaks. Bosnia’s now highly consolidated territories have homogenised themselves along ethnic and religious orientations. The political and the religious have fused in the architecture of religious institutions which have become territorial markings and substitutes for national frontiers. It is evident that the ethnic tensions which fueled the war ardently survive to this day. Bosnia’s fragmentation is not only geographic – it is also cultural, economic and political for which all ethnicities are suffering an undeniable loss. To address this fragmentation, a different type of architecture needs to emerge, one that would function as a crucible for new ways of thinking and as a platform for the emergence of a new socio-political form. This new type of architecture must address a common past and must emerge out of a secular public institution that includes all ethnic groups. A national library is the seat of collective memory and a symbol of common identity: this project is an attempt to re-conceptualise the Bosnian National Library.
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The history of the National Library ( Vjecnica ) is intrinsically linked with that of the history of Bosnia itself. The building was constructed as a city hall in Sarajevo at the foot of the River Miljacka by Austro-Hungarian powers in 1894. This was an assertion of political power in a country that had been part of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years. To make a smooth transition between the two colonising powers, the Austrians used an Islamic style of architecture, borrowing from the Moorish Alhambra and neglecting the Bosnian Ottoman style. The new pseudo- Moorish building was not well received. It was out of scale with the Ottoman city centre and its entrance turned away from the city and onto the river. Vjecnica ’s function as city hall was short-lived, coming to an end in 1914 with the assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinand, the consequent onset of WWI and the collapse of Hapsburg power. ´
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