“War Architecture – Sarajevo: Wounded City”

The Association of Architects of Sarajevo also contributed to bear witness about the destruction of besieged Sarajevo in Europe and the world. The exhibition “War Architecture – Sarajevo: Wounded City” was prepared under harsh war conditions, from May 1992 to October 1993, by Mirsad Ćesović, Borislav Ćurić, Nasif Hasanbegović, Darko Serfić and Sabahudin Špilj. It was an extensive multimedia exhibition documenting the destruction of Sarajevo’s architectural heritage through photographs, films, audio recordings and personal testimonies. In March 1994, five members of the Sarajevo Association of Architects, who were working on its preparation, were given the opportunity to leave the city with the exhibition packed in two boxes. Since then, the mission of the exhibition has been to inform the international public about one of the main forms of aggression – the destruction of urban areas and architecture.

The exhibition was originally opened at the Pompidou Center in Paris, after which it received an invitation to visit several other European museums. In addition to showing the degree of damage to Sarajevo’s architecture, it aimed to call for financial support for the reconstruction and reconstruction process of the city. From February 4 to March 18, 1995, the exhibition “War Architecture – Sarajevo: Wounded City” visited New York together with another exhibition of the Association of Architects Sarajevo “Dreams and Reality” whose authors were 35 Sarajevo architects with Rajka Mandić as coordinator. After the publication of an article in the New York Times in February 1995, public interest in the exhibitions grew even more and a tour throughout the United States was arranged.