The architecture of Bosnia and Herzegovina is largely influenced by four major periods, when political and social changes determined the creation of distinct cultural and architectural habits of the region.
Medieval period
The medieval period in Bosnia lasted until the invasion of Ottoman Empire. The social organization of Bosnia of that time developed into a system known as Zadruga. In Zadruga, the community was organized such that a few families with common interests would live closely together in housing clusters. The leaders of the community were selected according to their age and high ethical standards. The Zadruga system was primarily found a rural agrarian communities that is greatly dependent on natural resources. As the community grew, segments of families would collectively move to another area forming a new cluster or a village. The continuing links between these related clusters stimulated both trade and economy. Individual families lived together in houses known as Dinaric houses. These were simple structures build of natural materials (usually timber and wickerwork). Interior space was organized around the hearth in a central room with separate private quarters for men and women.
Even though military fortresses in Bosnia and Herzegovina date from the era of Roman rule, most of them were built between the 12th and 15th century. The structures were built out of rough cut stone on hills overlooking a river, route or town. Today there are around 300 of them but most of them are in ruins. The most beautiful and well preserved are: Sarajevo, Srebrenik, Blagaj, Jajce, Travnik, Tešanj, Počitelj, Doboj, Vranduk, Bobovac, Stolac, Maglaj, Gradačac, Ljubuški, Sokol, Ključ, Bihać, Bosanska Krupa, Oštrovica, Velika Kladuša, Višegrad, and Zvornik. The court in Kraljeva Sutjeska was even richly engraved in Gothic style. An example of medieval Gothic and Romanesque tower is the Tower of St. Luke located in Jajce, created in the 15th century.
Ottoman period
In the late 15th century, the Ottoman Empire came to the Balkans. They addressed the need to develop urban areas and cities, bringing imperial Islamic architecture to the region, partly mixed with local customs (one of them being the use of squinches instead of triangular pendentives found in Turkey). From this emerged the basic form and organization of urban areas which are still distinctive today. Dušan Grabrijan, an architectural theoretician, defined the primary organization of typical Bosnian cities. He recognized that cities had five authentic components defined by a set of "unwritten laws": surrounding hills defined the form of the city, the main road is the spine, "Čarsija" is the heart, vegetation are lungs, river is the spirit. Juraj Neidhardt, another theoretician, described a typical Bosnian city in one of his books as follows:
The fact that people used river as a main element of urban life led to construction of Stari Most in 1566 in Mostar in Herzegovina. At the time it was built it was the longest single span arch stone bridge in the world. Its meaning had however rather more profound power. It symbolized the connection between eastern and western civilization. In addition to urban planning, architecture of Bosnia has emerged with a bit clearer architectural vocabulary. Architecture however was organized around a set of unwritten architectural laws including: human scale, unobstructed views, geometry, open and flexible spaces, simple furniture, spatial links to nature and use of local materials and traditional building techniques. In addition design philosophy favored heterogeneity of materials. In other words, each material had a particular intrinsic function given to it by social perception of the people involved in the architectural process. Juraj Neidhardt described this perception as follows:
Hence foundations were built out of stone, ground floor out of clay, unburnt brick and wooden ties, first floor out of wooden frame and roof almost always out of wood. Organizationally, a typical Bosnian residence from the 17th century consisted of five main elements: a fence that faced and defined the street and clearly differentiated private from public, a courtyard usually built of pebble or flat stone pattern for easier maintenance, an outdoor fountain (Šadrvan) for hygienic purposes, a lower level "semi-public" private space called the Hajat where the family would gather, and the Divanhan, an upper-level semi-private/private space used for relaxation and enjoyment.
Austro-Hungarian period
In 1878 Bosnia and Herzegovina fell under Austro-Hungarian rule which in 40 years had an immense influence in future urban planning and architecture. Some of the changes introduced by Austrian influence included introduction of new building code regulations such as required building permits, life safety and fire protection requirements, regulated wall thickness and building heights. Some changes in urban planning involved classification of street types and consequent building regulations, requirement for harmonious design with immediate surroundings and compliance with overall regulation plan. There were also changes in a general design philosophy. Stylistically, Bosnia was to be assimilated into the European mainstream (hence the use of historicist architectural styles), save for the appearance of the Orientalist style (also Pseudo-Moorish style). The aim was to promote Bosnian national identity while avoiding its association with either the Ottoman Empire or the growing pan-Slavic movement by creating an "Islamic architecture of European fantasy".
The new architectural languages added to diversity of already complex urban composition in Bosnian cities. These and other changes caused certain other consequences in Bosnia. For example, building life safety was improved however local building contractors and architects become obsolete due to new regulations and construction methods. This caused immigration of skilled labor from Central Europe that further doubled and diversified the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina which in the turn stimulated the economy.
Finally, cities began changing their character. The majority of projects during the time of Austrian influence dealt with administrative building designs. The post office in Sarajevo for example follows distinct formal characteristics of design like clarity of form, symmetry, and proportion while the interior followed the same doctrine. The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo is an example of Orientalist architectural language using Moorish-Mamluk decoration and pointed arches while still integrating other formal elements into the design.
Historicist styles During its reign, the Austro-Hungarian authorities sought to impose and build architecture of European styles in Bosnia and Herzegovina and thus to show the meaning of their mission in the occupied country. Initially, it offered historic styles that built the most representative buildings of the second half of the 19th century in Vienna. In Bosnia, too much was built in foreign building styles, primarily historicism, and too little appreciated, respected, and used the vernacular Bosnian methods of building.
Moorish Revival architecture
Confronted with the multinational population structure in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the government realized that it was necessary to have a political ear when choosing one of the historical styles. For construction in areas where the Bosniak population was predominant, architects used the Moorish Revival style.
This style drew its inspiration from the Moorish and Mudéjar architecture of Spain as well as Mamluk architecture of Egypt and Syria, as exemplified by Mostar Gymnasium. This included application of ornamentations and other "Moorish" design strategies neither of which had much to do with prior architectural direction of indigenous Bosnian architecture.
Art Nouveau and Secession style
Bosnian Style in architecture
The Bosnian style can be compared with Scandinavian National Romanticism. The Bosnian Style was championed by a younger generation of architects, like Czech architect Josip Pospišil, Slovene architect Rudolf Tönnies, and Austrian architect Ernst Lichtblau, who all studied at the Art Academy in Vienna with Karl von Hasenauer and Otto Wagner. The style was, however, named by Sarajevo's senior architect, Josip Vancaš, for whom many of these younger architects worked.
The Bosnian Style architects wanted to retrieve the vernacular architectural elements proper of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as opposed to the imported scripts of both historicist and Moorish Revival styles. The Bosnian Style may be "best understood as within the tradition of national romanticism", although its designers were not from within the nation they aimed to represent. Yet, Bosnian Style architects also made reference to historical rather than contemporary sources, and mainly to the Islamic component of the vernacular Bosnian architecture, thus resulting in "the substitution of one historicist collage for another" (Gunzburger-Makas and Damljanovic-Conley).
Royalist Yugoslav period
Bosnia and Herzegovina joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, whose official architecture became more and more dictated by an increasingly concentrated national authority which sought to establish a unified state identity.
Bosnia and Herzegovina remained at the margin of interwar architectural modernism in Yugoslavia. Dušan Smiljanić and Helen Baldasar, who taught at the Technical High School in Sarajevo since 1924, were among the first to bring modernist ideas to Sarajevo in the 1920s. Later, D. Smiljanić became a municipal architect in a short time, and until 1939 he had his own architectural firm. Helen Baldasar designed buildings that represent the first built buildings of modern architecture in Sarajevo: the Bembaša Baths, the Red Cross Society building, and the Bratinska-Rašidagić building.
Several residential units were built in 1933–1941 in Crni Vrh by various architects from around the country. The Crni Vrh estate was built on a hill overlooking the urbanised centre, facing south and among greenery. The estate is protected since 2012, despite various status of conservation.
After having studied in Prague, the brothers Muhamed and Reuf Kadić were active in Sarajevo in those years. Based on the achievements of cubism and neoplasticism, strove to create a free and pure geometric architectural form. Their work was dominated by the ideas of healthy functionalism, advocating the synthesis of content and form, especially in the culture of housing. Reuf Kadić's main work, 1939 House Kopčić, reinterprets traditional elements (courtyard, facade erkers, eaves, hipped roof) in line with new modern conceptions. They also designed the Mekteb residential building at the corner of Ferhadija and Ćemaluša.Adnan Zoranic 2019 "Heritage of Early Modernism in Residential Architecture in Sarajevo" IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 471 112040 In 1940 their Pension Fund Building was opened, exhibiting "reduced forms geometrically 'clean' surfaces and volumes".Ivan Straus, Muhamed Kadic, 100 godina rodjenja, www.a4a.infoKONS Čokadži Sulejman Vakuf mixed-use building, the historic building
Within the limits imposed by the socio-economic conditions, the Vakuf institution had become a powerful investor, and thanks to these architects, Vakuf buildings are usually utilitarian and constructivist in concept:
Vakuf Hadži Idriz Palace (D. Smiljanić) Vakuf Jakub paša building (D. Smiljanić) Residential and business building of Vakuf Čokadži Sulejman (Muhamed and Reuf Kadić) Vakuf Hovadž Kemaludin's residential and business building in Ferhadija Street, on the site of a former mekteb (Muhamed and Reuf Kadić) The Pension Fund building was built in 1943 (Muhamed and Reuf Kadić)