KELLY WRITERS HOUSE

Erika Tapp

MOSTAR/SARAJEVO:
MODERNIST RUINS

ARTIST STATEMENT

 
My experience of postwar Bosnia Herzegovina began in the summer of 2000 at the Mostar 2004 workshop, an annual gathering designed to educate architects, planners, and students about the issues of postwar reconstruction in Mostar. It was a truly illuminating experience. Mostar, and the whole of Bosnia, is the kind of place that infects all who visit, making just one trip almost an impossibility. I too fell under its spell.

My research has sought to explore the genre of buildings that were constructed in the later half of the 20th Century. And this exhibit seeks to examine the paradoxical situation caused by the war, of the modernist building in ruin. This exhibit hopes to be as much about the war as it is about how life has continued after the war. Rather than be appalled by the terror of the war, I invite you to see that there is life thriving among these ruins.

Modernist architecture in the former Yugoslavia rarely receives more than a footnote in any text, whether about modern or Yugoslav architecture. The Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian period buildings and planning projects receive far more attention. The modernist architecture of Tito's Yugoslavia and the period immediately following his death are able to present to us a very interesting picture. On the one hand, state sponsored projects do their best to remain nonspecific, that is, they resemble buildings throughout Yugoslavia and in many ways throughout communist Eastern Europe. This is the type of modernist architecture found in the newer areas of Sarajevo. On the other hand, architects building in provincial cities like Mostar often tried to express a regional aesthetic in their buildings. This aspiration was never supported by the state, though neither condemned. Patterns of patronage in Mostar and Sarajevo reveal a tension between ethnic, or preferably regional, expression and nationalistic goals long before the events of 1991-1995.

During the war many structures which were not valuable strategically were destroyed simply because they were of cultural importance. Buildings like the National Library in Sarajevo, the Stari Most (Old Bridge) in Mostar, and the structures in the old town of Dubrovnik were among them. These edifices represented a kind of collective past and simultaneously the distinct cultural heritages of the various regions. Besides the genocidal massacres which took their toll in human lives, there was another kind of massacre occurring which has often been described as "urbicide".

Reconstruction efforts throughout the former Yugoslavia have focused on the more "historic structures" of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian periods. The infamy of the siege of Sarajevo has contributed to significant international involvement in the reconstruction process. Much of the physical reconstruction nears completion in this capital city, though economic and emotional recovery is naturally enough a longer process.

The destruction in the provincial capital of western Hercegovina, Mostar, was far more serious than even in Sarajevo. The city was subjected to two different two-month sieges that nearly destroyed the Ottoman, east side of the city. The reconstruction effort in Mostar is headed by the Bosnian architect, Amir Pasic, once a celebrated planner and architect who now devotes himself full time to the reconstruction process in Mostar. He has found financial backing both in the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, an organization which finances a wide range of projects affiliated with architecture in Islamic countries, and the World Monuments Fund, an international organization which provides support for saving monuments throughout the world. This project, like other reconstruction projects, focuses attention and monies on older constructions, leaving more recent buildings to be dealt with by commercial interests. The reconstruction process in Mostar has moved at a far slower pace then in the national capital. We often assume that the story ends once peace has been established. And for the architects of the Aga Khan office in Mostar, that was when their work began and continues to this day.

This project has been made possible by a very wonderful group of people. I must thank Amir Pasic, who has supported me on numerous occasions while in Bosnia and Istanbul; Laura Briggs, Medina Lasansky, Renata Holod, and Robert Wojtowicz who served as faculty advisors at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania; the Department of Art History at Penn for financial assistance in the last moments of this exhibit; many thanks to John Henry Rice, whose photographic and editorial expertise was invaluable in the execution of the exhibit; my mother and father for support both financial and emotional; and especially to Peter Schwarz and the Kelly Writers House for hosting this work.