The Turkish Cultural Center is the building in the middle. It is very (post)modern, but it fits into the urban fabric extremely well, in part because it makes several comments about the adjacent fabric.
I believe this is another new cultural center (Larisa please verify). The entry pavilion obviously refers back to Ottoman ablution-fountains, but the building behind is extremely contemporary. These are two good examples of modern design within historic urban fabric.
In contrast, some of the 1980s architecture in the middle of the city is rather painfully ugly. On the left, the Holiday Inn where the Western journalists stayed during the siege (1992-1995). On the right, twin office towers. I think their only redeeming quality is that they reflect the beautiful surrounding scenery.
In central Sarajevo a new commercial tower is under construction, and the cleared land in the foreground of this photograph will be the new U.S. embassy. I hope the Americans don’t then presume that they can close off the central boulevard of this city too.
As I mentioned on the previous “social housing” page, large-scale advertisements on buildings in central Sarajevo mark the arrival of capitalism here. The image above is ironic, because this battered housing is occupied by embattled squatters. And yet the billboard mounted on this end says “this is what your home should look like.”
Here, the beverage ad is in good condition, much better than the elder housing on which it is mounted. Note also the scaling-up of the housing in the background.
It is interesting that, at the same time that Islam is much more evident in the buildings and clothing of people in Sarajevo, the new advertising makes alcohol more visible too.