U r b a n r o o m s o f S a r a j e v o : Tr a n s f o r m i n g u r b a n p u b l i c s p a c e s u s i n g i n t e r i o r d e s i g n t o o l s
From Medieval Vrhbosna to Ottoman Sarajevo
The territory of Sarajevo has been inhabited since antiquity by Illyrian, Celtic and Slavic populations, with its first settlements dating from Neolithic and Roman times. In the middle ages, the area of Vrhbosna2 (the precursor of modern Sarajevo) developed as a cluster of villages under the authority of the independent Kingdom of Bosnia. The first historically significant transition occurred in the mid-15th century, when Medieval Bosnia was succeeded by the Ottoman Empire’s occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The feudal system was replaced by the oriental monarchy, and a new religion – Islam – was introduced to a population that generally belonged to the Bosnian Church. The scattered medieval settlements and remnants of Roman occupation, including medieval marketplaces such as Tornik (Čengić, 2003), merged into the new oriental urban model of the city. Context: Sarajevo’s earliest urban contours date from the 15th century, when a medieval cluster of settlements and an embryonic road network evolved into an oriental city at the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Between 1462 and 1878 the Ottomans defined the original urban structure of the city’s core, instituting a strict separation of private and public domains. Complementing the topography of the city, all public facilities were located in the centre (Bascarsija), within the elongated valley of the Miljacka River, while private life took place in the residential settlements (mahalas) developed laterally on both sides of the city’s amphitheatrical topography.
2
Vrhbosna can be translated as the “the peak of Bosnia”.
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