The Destruction of Stari Most

© Development Network, no. 14 (Spring 1994), pp. 5-7.

In 1986, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture was conferred upon Stari-Grad, a non-governmental organization in the Yugoslavian Republic of Herzegovina. Founded in 1977 on the initiative of Dzihad Pasic, formerly a government inspector of monuments, Stari-Grad's purpose was to restore and preserve the sixteenth-century centre of Mostar, the second largest town in the Republic.

Mostar was a small settlement of a few houses before the Ottoman conquest of Herzegovina. Its expansion dates from the arrival of the Ottomans, who built a permanent bridge across the Neretva River in the middle of the sixteenth century. Stari Most ("the old bridge") stimulated trade and business activity, and by the early seventeenth century the town had grown to include over a thousand houses. Through the following centuries, Stari Most became one of the region's most famous and beloved landmarks. In a town inhabited by Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox, it also became a symbol of the community's common heritage.

Today, Stari Most has fallen victim to the wars in former Yugoslavia. Suha Özkan, Secretary-General of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, has contributed the following commentary on the extraordinary revitalization of Mostar catalyzed by Stari-Grad in the years before the war, and the implications of the destruction, along with much of Bosnia-Herzegovina's architectural heritage, of Mostar's most beautiful, meaningful bridge.

On the morning of November 9, 1993, the first shell hit the leg of Stari Most bridge in Mostar. Shelling of this same spot continued with chilling accuracy, one shell after another, as if attackers had finally found an historical opportunity for destruction. After several hits, the pediment was smashed, and the elegant, arched backbone of the bridge collapsed into the water with a tragic splash, as if the Neretva River was shedding tears for the millions of people who had now lost a cherished piece of memory. For them, the Stari Most Bridge was as significant as the nave of Hagia Sophia, or the top of the Empire State Building, the approach to the Taj Mahal or the heights of Machu Picchu; its presence surpassed any function.

It took Mimar Hayreddin and his workers nine years, from 1557 to 1566, to build the bridge which was destroyed in perhaps less than thirty minutes. Stari Most bridge embodied the very concept of a "bridge". It not only connected the two sides of a river bounded by steep cliffs. It also merged two neighbourhoods into a single town and brought two groups together into one community. It had done so for more than four hundred years.

When the Ottomans added new regions to their empire, it was their policy to build new community facilities, using state-of-the-art technology to demonstrate the best of their own culture. The urban nucleus they established in Mostar was intended to present a new way of life, in which the State's on-going obligations included the provision of education and food for the poor. Pupils of the court architect Sinan came to build new buildings, and, due to the considerable potential of its strategic location, the town developed rapidly.

The completion of Stari Most bridge became the major stimulus for the development of Mostar as a town where Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox lived together peacefully, in a spirit of understanding and respect. Although other bridges were also built on the Neretva River, Stari Most, which gave the town its name (Mostar: "Bridge-keeper"), remained as the main landmark, an exemplary achievement of sixteenth century technology and aesthetics. For more than four hundred years, it survived the wars, earthquakes and other hardships that beset the region. It even bore the tanks of the Third Reich during World War II, when the Wehrmacht filled the steps leading up to the bridge with sand in order to create a ramp -- or perhaps to protect the delicate stone steps of the bridge?

Since the most recent hostilities began, the architectural heritage in Bosnia-Herzegovina has been a major target. In an attempt to erase the physical presence of Islam, the region's mosques with their elegant minarets were the first to be attacked, followed by traditional Ottoman housing and its variants, including its sophisticated expressions in the European wing of the old Empire. What has now been destroyed was absolutely unique. Along with Macedonia and Albania, Bosnia was one of the few places where the architectural heritage of the Ottoman era had been protected and enabled to survive.

As the war gained momentum, Stari Most bridge became one of the most significant symbolic targets. However distressed by the loss of life and unrelenting human tragedy, people who knew Mostar and its history could not help praying for the safety of the bridge. Until that morning in November, we who were following events in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the destruction of the splendidly restored town of Mostar continued to hope that the bridge, and something of what it stood for, might survive.

As destruction in Mostar continued, the residents of neighbourhoods of religious and ethnic diversity were forced to accept the impossibility of remaining in their homes. Escape into the so-called "safety" of their respective communities, however, could only be made by crossing the Stari Most bridge, often under heavy sniper fire.

Despite the increasing danger, residents constantly tried to protect their beloved bridge. Automobile tyres were hung from the parapet to try to absorb the shock of the shells and reduce damage.

The reasons behind the destruction of the cultural heritage throughout former Yugoslavia will remain as incomprehensible as Herostratos' destruction of the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, simply because it was beautiful. Stari Most's beauty had become its reason to be -- after catalyzing Mostar's initial development in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it served the town well in the twentieth century through its sheer presence. With many visitors during the summer months, Mostar became one of the liveliest cities in Eastern Europe. Along with the surrounding architecture, characterized by a mixture of the local vernacular with the Ottoman and Austrian heritage, the spectacular beauty of the river and the bridge gave unusual richness to Mostar. The presentation of this architectural heritage to visitors became a means of protecting and developing the old city, Stari Grad.

Restoration and preservation were not unimportant government commitments in Yugoslavia. With national union based on a plurality of religious and ethnic backgrounds, the government was publicly committed to the protection of the heritage of all of its constituent groups. As far as cultural commitments in Bosnia-Herzegovina were concerned, the main problem of the socialist system was the cumbersome, time-consuming bureaucracy and the centralization of decision-making in Sarajevo.

Dzihad Pasic, a government inspector of monuments, and his younger cousin Amir Pasic, were determined to change this. Through the establishment of Stari-Grad, a non-governmental organization, they created a new institutional framework for the restoration and development of the old town of Mostar. The idea was that cultural activity could be developed to finance restoration, thus becoming an instrument for economic development. The Government supported Stari-Grad by giving it control over 74.2 hectares of urban land, along with revenue from tax, rents, and cinema advertisements.

The objective was not only restoration, but also the economic development of Mostar. Stimulating tourism was an obvious economic development goal, but improvement was also sought through the establishment of new accommodation for many civic and community functions. By using old buildings for contemporary purposes, the old urban tissue would not just be restored, but revitalized. With the exception of the mosques and the madrasa, all of the restored buildings were given new functions or refurbished, like the old shops and offices on the banks of the Neretva River. The tannery kept its old leather-related identity in the form of shops and a gallery for leather-work, while new functions were added in the form of a restaurant and tourist bureau. Long waiting lists for the restored buildings demonstrated the economic stability of the project from the outset. Stari-Grad's legal authority and control allowed economic gains to be funnelled back into the project to finance further stages in development.

When the conservation of Mostar received an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1986, the project promised even further achievements, all self-financed. Replicating its approach, three other restoration projects had been launched in Bosnia-Herzegovina -- in Pocitelj, Visegrad, and the Bascarsija quarter of Sarajevo. In the work of Stari-Grad, the Award recognized one of the world's most successful and replicable case studies of urban revitalization, demonstrating how the rehabilitation of a historic city could be translated into economic development and an improved quality of life for its inhabitants.

The Pasics were from the Muslim community of Mostar, but the team was composed of Croats and Serbs as well. Even during attacks on their town, the team worked to save Stari-Grad's documentation and to protect one another. When the project leader was forced to leave Mostar, he did his utmost to enable his colleagues to reach safety. They have been welcomed in Turkey as technical experts and have continued to work together to publicize the damage to Mostar. Urbicide -- an exhibition they prepared on "urban genocide" in Mostar -- opened at UNESCO in Paris and will travel to many other cities in Europe and the USA. For 1993-94, Amir Pasic has been named Visiting Scholar at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has continued to inform a wider public about the destruction of Mostar and the architectural heritage of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In Mostar, people continue to risk their lives to document buildings that are still standing, and to send documents out of Mostar for safe-keeping. The ultimate goal is extremely optimistic -- the architects of Mostar hope to be able to restore their city and propose it again for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture during its tenth cycle, in 2007.

At the conclusion of their 1986 citation concerning Stari-Grad's conservation of Mostar, the Award's Master Jury stated: "In seven years, Stari-Grad made Mostar vibrant again." We hope that Stari-Grad's achievement in the past can fuel hope for Mostar's future.