INTRODUCTION

In times of constantly changing technological, socio-political and economic paradigms, traditional definitions of public spaces need to be reassessed. This makes addressing the concept of public spaces in the contemporary global context particularly challenging. The complexity increases when the subject of public spaces is explored within the framework of a society in transition, and its multifaceted historical background. This book researches public spaces in the city of Sarajevo, an atypical city that has followed a route of urban development different to those of other cities in the region. The scope of public spaces, the key research subject of this book, encompasses open (and some enclosed) spaces in the public realm, which foster social interaction and gatherings. Regardless of their ownership, the spaces targeted in this study were chosen for their public importance and their relationship with the broader context of the city.

Public spaces in the (post-) transitional city of Sarajevo reflect its frequent and turbulent historical and socio-political shifts. The contemporary urban identity of these spaces has ambiguous and transient features, and should therefore be explored from a distinct, contextually sensitive research and design perspective. We recognised the ambiguity/inbetweenness/transiency of Sarajevo’s public spaces as a particularly captivating subject, and considered it in this book from a historical, sociocultural and urban perspective. This theoretical exploration culminates in

the recognition of urban voids – a specific and contested typology of public spaces in Sarajevo – as the key research target, followed by the identification of urban rooms as their regenerated counterpart.

This book has five chapters. The first two provide a historical overview of the evolution of public spaces in Sarajevo, and map their spatial attributes: accessibility, enclosure, scale, typology, urban activity, and urban atmosphere. These chapters highlight the ambiguity of public spaces and related contemporary socio-cultural issues. The third focuses on transitory identity as a potentially transformative force in the urban regeneration of public spaces. Key issues and challenges are identified, examined and used as stimuli – the most appropriate solutions in our case studies used their dichotomous characters as their transformative

power. The last two chapters focus on the theoretical elaboration of the targeted typology (urban voids), illustrated by a practical simulation of recommendations for their potential conversion into urban rooms, based on the proposed design methodologies and intervention strategies.