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Places of Memory:
Experience Manifest in Post-War Sarajevo
writing
Architecture's relationship to war and conflict is perceived as tangential, a collateral victim of human discord. And yet the active and systematic erasure of an urban landscape is the strategic levelling of identity - intentionally done. Rebuilding after war is a complex challenge; one must seek to both address the traumatic past while also moving beyond it. But when the destroyer is one with the destroyed, the challenge becomes nearly unworkably fraught. Reconciliation through architecture - architectures of memory - remain both neutral and specific pieces in harnessing the support of a still-fractured community to move past war.
More than twenty years have passed since Sarajevo was embroiled in civil war. And though the habits of daily life have resumed, traces of the conflict remain everywhere. They are embedded in buildings and shorn from the earth. They are in the parks that turned, overnight, into graveyards. The fear at the prospect of returning to certain streets, the memories of running down those streets to escape sniper fire still vivid and visceral.
Building after disaster or trauma is often seen as a means to an end, and is articulated by three typological approaches: the restorative, the reconstructive, and the reconciliatory. The restorative and reconstructive approaches can be understood as two branches of a larger approach: architecture as resolution. Architecture as resolution aims to provide an immediate solution to a problem (ranging from natural to man made solutions; from population growth to technological innovation.)
Restorative architecture seeks to return the landscape to what it was before disaster. This can be seen, for example, in Dresden, a city decimated by a firebombing campaign during World War II. The city center - the cathedral in particular - has been painstakingly built back just as it was. Rotterdam, on the other hand, took a more reconstructive approach to rebuilding after disaster. Experiments with the urban fabric have, over the years, inspired a generation of architects and turned Rotterdam into a city known for innovation in the built form.
In cases of rebuilding after war, restorative and reconstructive approaches can be a means for a city to unite and heal in the face of a common enemy. But this is more complex in cases of civil war, and approaches indifferent to cultural and historical complexities simply exacerbate latent issues, particularly if peace was only shakily found in the first place.
Dresden after being bombed in Feb. 1945.
Rotterdam after being bombed in May 1940.
Dresden in the 21st century.
Rotterdam in the 21st century.
The strict ceasefire laid out by the Dayton Accords (signed by Bosniak, Serb, and Croat representatives)almost instantaneously ended - resolved - the Bosnian conflict, but it left the new Bosnian nation largely incapable of continuing to address the conflict, nor did the agreement itself lay out clear plans for future reconciliation. Sarajevans were essentially strong-armed into returning to their lives before the war without being able - being allowed - to address their recent trauma.
In early 2014, protests against government factory closings in a small North Bosnian city quickly became violent and spread across the country. By the time the protests reached Sarajevo, the issue had evolved from an economic one into a political and social one. Major civic buildings in the city centre were firebombed, including the Presidential Palace and the National Archives. This move may have been symbolic of a desire to write a new history for the country; regardless of intention, these actions belie the notion of a reconciled Sarajevo.
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A natural architectural impulse is to create a memorial for the city and conflict. Indeed, this is an approach used the world over. But memorials do little to spur growth or healing, particularly growth or healing of the urban environment and people's relationship with it. A singular site is rarely equipped to take on the issues of a diverse urban area.
What is needed is architecture as reconciliation.
The concept of reconciliation builds on that of resolution, but reaches beyond a sense of conclusion to search for a return to harmony and unity. Reconciliation is required in the ‘resolution’ of complex social, economic, political, and historical issues. And while these issues are often explored in the arts, they are rarely translated into architecture. But they can be.
I propose an approach that is embedded in the fabric and spirit of the city, its traditions, people, and needs considering Sarajevo’s post war reality. - and the subsequent translation of those needs into architectural form. Organising interventions in series, along a path, provides not just a place to mourn, remember, and heal; that architecture as reconciliation is an experiential process tied to the city itself.
