Abstract
Sarajevo’s contested position at the intersection of geopolitical ‘tectonic plates’ - situated between Rome and Byzantium, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, the Western and Eastern Bloc, de-colonization and re-colonization - resulted in both fertile periods of exchange and moments of devastating conflicts. This in-betweenness has contributed to the (dis)continuous development of a linear urban cityscape and a series of spatial productions and radical transformations. Therefore, Sarajevo, with all its diversity, has always been an urban testing ground for social and spatial mutation processes. The proclamation of Tito’s communist revolution in 1945 and the establishment of a socialist Yugoslav federation, created pressing spatial demands for the new urban proletariat. The industrialization and rural-urban migration gave birth to the city’s first strategic urbanistic model, enabled by proclaiming the collectivization of land as a common good. As Sarajevo, and on a larger scale Yugoslavia as a whole, was thrust onto the international stage, architects and urbanists were tasked with planning and designing a socialist utopia. Later in 1992, as socialist Yugoslavia began to crumble after the geopolitical vacuum of post-1989 Europe. Under wartime conditions, the urban utopia was de-urbanized. The collapse of urban infrastructure and the destruction of the human habitat characterized in Bogdan Bogdanović’s description of urbicide reached its peak in Sarajevo. During this period, Sarajevo went through a radical transformation: public spaces became graveyards or urban-agricultural zones for survival. Nevertheless, in acts of popular resistance, destroyed buildings became temporary art spaces. It attracted a wave of global solidarity as intellectuals visited Sarajevo, including Lebbeus Woods, and formed a vital part of the anti-war architectural agency, analyzing the destruction and proposing small adaptations and radical post-war reconstruction visions. However, these visions did not adhere to the post-socialist and post-war realities of the newly ethnically-divided Sarajevo resulting from the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. Common properties had been converted into state ones, which were then auctioned to the public in a massive privatization. These economic and legal schemes led to an aggressive development driven by investments from across the geopolitical spectrum, which disregarded already destroyed public space in favor of monocultures of generic commercial architecture. The paper includes ‘Reactivate Sarajevo’, an activist experiment of spatial agency that connected theory and practice by engaging in-situ. Influenced by both the pioneers of reflective practice, Donald Schön and Kurt Lewin, and the concept of the activist architect, ‘Reactivate Sarajevo’ exposed the work-in-progress to the public. This discourse was initiated through the organization of expert symposia, stakeholder workshops and open discussions with the general public. The production of discourse, curation of performances and reflection of these actions mutually nurtured the theoretical chapters. These acts spawned critical mapping and alternative design concepts, presented through an interactive digital platform, as well as a strategy of inversion to represent BiH 2016 at the International Architecture Biennale in Venice for the first time in the country’s history. The exhibition showcased not only critical research, but also alternative design concepts of an amplification of civic action as a basis for integrated and inclusive urban transformation of the future Sarajevo. The ETH Zurich Urban Toolbox provided an intersectional methodological approach for examining physical typology, program, and people, spanning from spatial and stakeholder analyses synthesized through critical mapping, to the identification of strategic scenarios, and the use of digital media.
