During 1993 a multicultural city is under siege by military forces, obliged with an insane target. “Clean” the city from the Muslims who live in it. Practically that meant war. The city is Sarajevo, capital city and Metropolis of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
After the embargo from the rest of the world, Bosnia-Herzegovina is actually disappears from the global communion. The citizens of the cities learn to live under conscious fear from the snipers, the bombing but mainly without the main survival kit (electricity and heat that is). Meanwhile hundreds of innocent people are being murdered daily. The war-paranoia in all its hideous glory.
Reconstructing the whole city above the war remains and the dramatic changes on all kind of aspects (social, psychological, political and economical), would be dreadful. After all the siege of Sarajevo, was a straight threat for all the big cities of the world, which normally accommodate different people from different religious backgrounds. The siege was a straight attack against the complexity of the city, in order to go back to the fundamental methods of the past. A brutal and fascistic reaction against the modern character of the city.
Lebbeus Woods visited Sarajevo one year after the war and he suggested a new urban design which was highly risked, but had post-modern aesthetics and was strongly supported by a wonderful concept.
He suggested a series of drawings free from any kind of beliefs (whether this are religion, politics e.t.c.) and against old labels who tried to legalize themselves in Post-War Sarajevo. He believed that a city that has been build upon thousands of people lives cannot be hanged back by some unions. He also believes that vanishing the half-destroyed buildings, like avant-garde architects did after the Second World War, is like modern architecture trying to do what it’s trying to erase.
Finally he suggests that all the buildings should be accepted in any form they are in (whether they are destroyed, half-destroyed e.t.c.) and design upon them new constructions which will act like injections. Additionally they won’t celebrate the aftermath, but would accept the war remains as part of the Bosnian history. Finally won’t try to connect old with the new, but work as scabs upon them.
