Authority to Liberate the Ottoman Legacy: Double Decentralization in Dušan Grabrijan’s and Juraj Neidhardt’s Theoretical Narrative

Lejla Džumhur; Aida Idrizbegović-Zgonić

doi:10.52200/docomomo.72.02

Authority to Liberate the Ottoman Legacy

Double Decentralization in Dušan Grabrijan’s and Juraj Neidhardt’s Theoretical Narrative

Authors

Lejla Džumhur University of Sarajevo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9687-4647
Aida Idrizbegović-Zgonić University of Sarajevo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5514-7729

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52200/docomomo.72.02

Keywords:

Modernism, Orientalism, Colonial Heritage, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Le Corbusier

Abstract

One of the most striking elements of Dušan Grabrijan’s and Juraj Neidhardt’s oeuvre is the extent and freedom of associations with the contested Ottoman legacy in the first decades of the socialist era in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as seen in their book Architecture of Bosnia and the Way towards Modernity. Such freedom primarily resulted from the increasingly favorable political environment that permitted and encouraged decentralization from the predominantly negative portrayal of the Ottoman past.
This paper seeks to unravel the structure and sources of the main discourses used by Grabrijan and Neidhardt in Architecture of Bosnia to deal with the stigma of the Ottoman heritage. We argue that they utilize a certain syncretic language that reflects their own and varied experiences within the Orient-Occident borderline. We assert that their first generating discourse is that of modernism, while the second one revolves around the so-called ‘close neighbor’ or ‘domesticated foreigner’ perspective on the Orient. The premise of Grabrijan’s and Neidhardt’s first position is argued through the parallels of their narrative and the inherent modernist authorization to operate with scientific displacement. The premise of the second position is confirmed through contact nodes with the local differentiated orientalist discourse, which Heiss and Feichtinger (2013) define as distinct in relation to Said’s general concept of oriental Otherness as formulated in Orientalism (1978).
In addition to plunging into the dualistic nature of Grabrijan’s and Neidhardt’s work on the lines of modernism and otherness, center-periphery, the conclusions of the paper point to the broader problem of the controversies of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian heritage, where the relationship of modernism towards/with Ottoman heritage is still an underrepresented subject.

How to Cite

Džumhur, L., & Idrizbegović-Zgonić, A. (2024). Authority to Liberate the Ottoman Legacy: Double Decentralization in Dušan Grabrijan’s and Juraj Neidhardt’s Theoretical Narrative. Docomomo Journal, (72), 16–23. https://doi.org/10.52200/docomomo.72.02

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Published

2024-12-07

Issue

No. 72 (2024): The Way towards Regional Modernities

Section

Essays

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Author Biographies

Lejla Džumhur, University of Sarajevo

is head of the Department of Theory and History of Architecture and Protection of Built Heritage at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Sarajevo. She has collaborated with the Bosnian and Herzegovinian State Commission to Preserve the National Monuments on the reconstruction of the Ottoman heritage destroyed in 1992-95. Her research explores the history of architecture and urbanism of Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly the intertwinement of Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and socialist architecture in ex-Yugoslavia and its representations in postcolonial and post-war contexts.

Aida Idrizbegović-Zgonić, University of Sarajevo

is an architect and a full professor at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Sarajevo. Her field of interest is the theory and history of architecture and the protection of cultural heritage. In 2005, she was part of the team that prepared the documentation for the nomination of the Old Town Mostar/ Old Bridge for the UNESCO / World Heritage List. More recently, she was involved in the restoration project of the Historical Museum (former Museum of Revolution) in Sarajevo. Her focus is on new interventions within historic cores, an ever-evolving topic as the pressure on urban environments mounts.

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