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
FOREWORD
Our lasting fascination with the dichotomies of indoor and outdoor, interior and urban space, private and public domains, domesticity and publicity, and interiority and exteriority as psychological and spatial conditions is the source of inspiration for this book. Our joint path of professional endeavours in architectural practice, as well as in the academic domain, have emerged from an effort to perceive and interpret space on multiple levels, simultaneously correlating the urban, architectural and interior. It is no surprise that we investigated the juxtaposition of interior and urban design when tackling the topic of urban rooms. The alliance between these research realms and the theoretical perspectives of the co-authors was inevitable – Dina Šamić explores the potentials of urban voids in contemporary cities, while Nermina Zagora researches how the urban context affects interior spaces. What began as an intuitive leap has gradually become purposeful research into the phenomenon of how the urban environment reflects interior design, and vice versa. Because of our powerful subjective and professional bond to the city of Sarajevo, like that so eloquently expressed above by Aleksandar Hemon, we were obliged to pursue the burning topic of Sarajevo’s urban public spaces crisis. With this book we contribute to a profounder exploration of this topic by proposing alternative planning methods and intervention 7
