Status of monument -> National monument
Published in the “Official Gazette of BiH” no. 36/09.
Pursuant to Article V para. 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 39 para. 1 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, at a session held from 10 to 16 March 2009 the Commission adopted a
D E C I S I O N
I
The historic building of the Red Cross Society in Sarajevo is hereby designated as a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the National Monument).
The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot no. 777/1 (new survey), corresponding to c.p. nos. 124 and 127, cadastral municipality Sarajevo L (old survey); Land Register entry no. L/83, Municipality Centar, Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The provisions relating to protection measures set forth by the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH nos. 2/02, 27/02, 6/04 and 51/07) shall apply to the National Monument.
II
The Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the Government of the Federation) shall be responsible for ensuring and providing the legal, scientific, technical, administrative and financial measures necessary for the protection, conservation, restoration and presentation of the National Monument.
The Commission to Preserve National Monuments (hereinafter: the Commission) shall determine the technical requirements and secure the funds for preparing and setting up signboards with basic details of the monument and the Decision to proclaim the property a National Monument.
III
To ensure the on-going protection of the National Monument on the area defined in Clause 1 para. 2 of this Decision, the following protection measures are hereby stipulated:
- all works are prohibited other than research and conservation and restoration works, repair works, and works designed to display the monument, with the approval of the Federal Ministry responsible for regional planning (hereinafter: the relevant ministry) and under the expert supervision of the heritage protection authority of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the heritage protection authority);
- during restoration works on the property, its original appearance shall be retained;
- missing parts shall be reconstructed in their original form, of the same size, using the same or the same type of material and the same building techniques wherever possible, based on documentation on their original form;
- an emergency action plan shall be drawn up for the rehabilitation of the property;
- a conservation plan and feasibility study shall be drawn up;
- the premises may be adapted to meet modern requirements (installation of central heating and other interior works), provided that the stylistic features of the property are retained, with the approval of the relevant ministry and under the expert supervision of the heritage protection authority;
- the property may be used for cultural and educational purposes in a manner that shall not impair the integrity of the building and its meaning in the townscape.
The following urgent protection measures shall be implemented to protect the property and provide the conditions for its conservation and restoration:
- clearing the interior of the building;
- conducting an examination and structural analysis of the structural elements of the building;
- the structural consolidation of the building and the repair of structural elements using the same materials and building techniques wherever possible;
- the urgent consolidation of the wall of the south frontispiece;
- protecting the building from adverse external impacts.
IV
All executive and area development planning acts not in accordance with the provisions of this Decision are hereby revoked.
V
Everyone, and in particular the competent authorities of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Canton, and urban and municipal authorities, shall refrain from any action that might damage the National Monument or jeopardize the preservation thereof.
VI
The Government of the Federation, the relevant ministry, the heritage protection authority, and the Municipal Authorities in charge of urban planning and land registry affairs, shall be notified of this Decision in order to carry out the measures stipulated in Articles II to V of this Decision, and the Authorized Municipal Court shall be notified for the purposes of registration in the Land Register.
VII
The elucidation and accompanying documentation form an integral part of this Decision, which may be viewed by interested parties on the premises or by accessing the website of the Commission (http://www.aneks8komisija.com.ba)
VIII
Pursuant to Art. V para 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, decisions of the Commission are final.
IX
This Decision shall enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Gazette of BiH.
This Decision has been adopted by the following members of the Commission: Zeynep Ahunbay, Martin Cherry, Amra Hadžimuhamedović, Dubravko Lovrenović, and Ljiljana Ševo.
No: 02-2-40/09-17
11 March 2009
Sarajevo
Chair of the Commission
Dubravko Lovrenović
E l u c i d a t i o n
I – INTRODUCTION
Pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a “National Monument” is an item of public property proclaimed by the Commission to Preserve National Monuments to be a National Monument pursuant to Articles V and VI of Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and property entered on the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of BiH no. 33/02) until the Commission reaches a final decision on its status, as to which there is no time limit and regardless of whether a petition for the property in question has been submitted or not.
On 14 January 2009 the Red Cross Society of BiH submitted a petition/proposal to the Commission to designate the Red Cross Building at no. 2 Kranjčevićeva street in Sarajevo as a national monument of BiH.
Pursuant to the proposal, the Commission proceeded to carry out the procedure for reaching a final decision to designate the Property as a National Monument, pursuant to Article V para. 4 of Annex 8 and Article 35 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments.
Statement of significance
The Red Cross Building at no. 2 Kranjčevićeva (Kranjčević) street in Sarajevo was built to the winning design submitted in 1928 by Helen Baldasar, who worked in Sarajevo between the two world wars, designing in the modernist spirit. It was in the architecture of health-care institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina that the principles of modernism could be consistently apply, since they directly fulfilled the specific social, humane, economic and functional needs of society, as did this building. The building is distinctive in being the only one of its kind in BiH. It was used as a health-care and education establishment, but also included a cinema, so that it could also be regarded as having a cultural function.
In the latter half of the 20th century the building became an essential feature in the cultural life of the city, thanks to the Sutjeska cinema.
II – PROCEDURE PRIOR TO DECISION
In the procedure preceding the adoption of a final decision to proclaim the property a national monument, the following documentation was inspected:
- Data on the current condition and use of the property, including a description and photographs, data of war damage, data on restoration or other works on the property, etc.;
- An inspection of the condition of the property;
- A copy of the cadastral plan;
- Historical, architectural and other documentary material on the property, as set out in the bibliography forming part of this Decision.
The findings based on the review of the above documentation and the condition of the property are as follows:
1. Details of the property
Location
The Red Cross Building at no. 2 Kranjčevićeva in Sarajevo is at the east end of Kranjčevićeva street, with its south front associated with the townscape of Marshal Tito street.
To the east, in the same block on the corner of Kranjčevićeva and Alipašina streets, is a building of the same period, while to the west is a modern housing complex built in the 1980s.
To the south, in the angle formed where Kranjčevićeva and Tito streets meet, is a building dating from the Austro-Hungarian period, built by Ćiril Iveković in the neo-Renaissance style.
The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot no. 777/1 (new survey), corresponding to c.p. nos. 124 and 127, cadastral municipality Sarajevo L (old survey); Land Register entry no. L/83, Municipality Centar, Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Historical information
The Red Cross Building in Sarajevo was erected as part of a project to build several Red Cross Society centres in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the late 1920s and 1930s. The Red Cross Society of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's headquarters were built in Belgrade in 1935, and Red Cross centres were also built in Novi Sad, Užice, Kragujevac, Tetovo, Čačak and Čapljina. In 1936, designs for Red Cross centres in Zagreb and Split were also drawn up(1).
The number of buildings actually erected for use by health-care institutions in the Kingdom fell far short of the number of designs produced. As a rule, each one that was built was of architectural value, and a true expression of its time(2).
It was in the architecture of health-care institutions that the principles of modernism could be consistently apply, since they directly fulfilled the specific social, humane, economic and functional needs of society.
In Sarajevo and elsewhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina, architects designed various types of health-care premises: general hospitals, specialist hospital wings, sanatoria, old people’s homes and homes for the disabled, maternity hospitals, outpatient clinics and polyclinics, and finally Red Cross centres.
At the same time, there were numerous competitions to design health-care institutes and district offices for workers' health and safety, where the emphasis was on their administrative function, with actual health-care facilities an ancillary feature(3).
The Red Cross Building at no. 2 Kranjčevićeva street in Sarajevo was built to the winning design produced in 1928, and the building was completed in 1929(4). The designer was the architect Helen Baldasar(5), who worked in Sarajevo between the two world wars, designing in the modernist spirit(6).
The construction of this historic building was funded by the Governing Board of the Red Cross Society of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, with its headquarters in Belgrade, and to some extent by donations from the people themselves.
Most of the site where the building stands was donated by Sarajevo Municipality, with part donated by Mrs Kjana hanuma Fadilpašić, née Sulejmanpašić. The Sarajevo branch of the Red Cross was the direct initiator of the building activities(7). In addition to office and storage space used by the Drina Banate Board, the Centre contained public baths, and a cinema hall which was rented out(8), but was also used to show films by the Banate Board, which managed the building until the outbreak of World War II(9).
In World War II, the Red Cross was reorganized, and the building became the headquarters of the County Board of the Croatian Red Cross, which was accountable to the Central Board of the Croatian Red Cross in Zagreb. In addition, an accident and emergency centre opened in the building(10).
The building was not damaged during World War II. After the war, and until the 1960s, the cinema hall was mainly used to show health-care-related and educational films intended for public education. The public baths in the basement remained in use, and the first floor housed the Red Cross Society offices and a soup kitchen.
In the mid 1960s the building was leased to the Forum film producing company of Sarajevo, which used it as a commercial cinema named Sutjeska, leaving the first floor to be used by the Red Cross Society. It was at this time that the public baths and soup kitchen were closed. Some of the ground-floor premises were leased to Sarajevo lawyers. The building continued to be used in this way until the outbreak of war in Bosnia in 1992.
In the 1980s a modern housing complex(11) was built to the west of and abutting onto the Red Cross Building. Until this was built, the inner courtyard to the north contained a flourishing arboretum(12) with fountains and rare plants, planted to mark visits by international Red Cross officials. When the new housing complex was built, part of the land to the north was expropriated from the Red Cross Society to become part of the housing estate, totally destroying the arboretum, of which no trace now remains.
The Red Cross Building was hit by incendiary munitions on 12 May 1992(13) and completely burned out, leaving only the reinforced concrete structure. The building is still derelict.
In 2007 the building was closed off with rebar grids and boarded up.
Atmospheric damp entering the building is causing rapid deterioration of the structural condition of the building.
Between 1997 and 2008, two outline proposals for the revitalization of the Red Cross Building were produced, the first in 1997 by the firm Arhitekt (director Dragan Bijedić), and the second by the firm New Way (Amir Vuk and associates) in 2004.
At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries a high-rise housing and commercial property was built in Alipašina street, blocking the access to the building from the east.
2. Description of the property
The Red Cross Building in Sarajevo was built on a plot with a total area of 821 sq.m., with its south side facing onto Kranjčevićeva street. To the west, a modern housing block dating from the latter half of the 20th century abuts onto the building, and to the east is a building of approximately the same date(14).
The building is polygonal in plan, with overall dimensions of 26.30 x 25.50 m, and has two storeys(15) plus a basement.
The building consists of the larger south block, which is trapezoid in plan and faces south onto Kranjčevićeva street, measuring 26.30 x 12.90 m overall, and the smaller north block at right angles to the south block, with overall dimensions of 12.60 x 10.10 m. The south block originally had two storeys, to which a mansard floor was added before 1992. The block is now 8.50 m in height as measured at the highest point of the badly damaged south front(16). The north block, which contains the cinema hall, is level in height with the first floor of the south block.
The main entrance(17) is in the middle of the south front, and measures 280 x 290 cm(18). It leads into the ground-floor foyer, which is roughly square in plan, with sides of 480 and 430 cm. Off the lobby is a transverse corridor running east-west, with a length of 22.10 m(19) and a width of 160 cm.
On the north side of the corridor, at the same level, is a doorway measuring 160 x 220 cm, leading into the former cinema hall(20).
A staircase(21) to the west of the corridor leads to the west wing of the building, which is 1.30 m above the level of the entrance foyer.
To the south of the west wing is a rectangular room measuring 6.10 x 4.60 m, part of which was let until 1992 to be used as lawyers' chambers, and part of which was the caretaker's lodge and the ticket office of the cinema.
This room leads out to Kranjčevićeva street via an anteroom measuring 2.10 x 3.80 m, through a doorway measuring 225 x 270 cm(22).
This part of the building contains a double-flight staircase against the west wall of the cinema hall, leading up from the ground to the first floor and down to the basement. The staircase and landings measure 2.20 x 5.00 m overall, with steps 1.00 m in width.
A doorway measuring 1.30 x 2.70 m leads from the north staircase landing to the north-western part of the courtyard.
The east and west wings of the south block are almost symmetrical.
The east wing of the south block is irregular in plan, measuring 9.20 x 12.90 m overall. The southern part contains office premises measuring 7.10 x 4.60 m overall. At the south-eastern end of the building, adjoining another building of the same date, is a blocked-off side entrance measuring 170 x 300 cm. The north-eastern part of this wing contained the service quarters and toilet block.
The cinema hall(23), measuring 9.10 x 17.70 m overall on the inside, was on the north side. The southern part of the cinema hall adjoins the south block of the building, which measures 9.10 x 5.45 m. Above this is a first-floor balcony(24) measuring 9.10 x 4.15 m, with a masonry parapet 90 cm in height. The northern part of the cinema hall measures 9.10 x 12.25 m on the inside.
At the northern most end of the cinema hall is a stage(25) measuring 9.10 x 4.70 m overall on the inside. To each side is a single-flight L-shaped staircase, 1.00 m in width, leading down from the cinema hall to the basement.
There are two side doors measuring 1.50 x 2.70 m(26), formerly used as exits for the cinema-goers.
The structural system of the cinema hall consists of reinforced concrete frames composed of 45 cm wide uprights against the side walls and horizontal 45 x 45 cm section beams. These frames are set 280 cm apart from east to west, with secondary reinforced 20 x 25 cm concrete beams laid north-south across them, over which again is the monolithic reinforced concrete roof structure(27).
The basement area of the building consists of a larger southern and a smaller northern section. The southern part matches the ground-floor area of the south block in size (26.30 x 12.90 m). In the middle, north of the basement, below the cinema hall, instead of a basement area there is an infill of soil, separated from the rest of the basement by a solid reinforced concrete wall.
A double flight of stairs leads from the basement of the south block to the east and west ends of the ground floor. The basement originally housed the public baths(28), boiler room and coal store.
The basement area below the stage at the northernmost end of the cinema hall was used to store film-screening equipment; it measures 10.10 x 4.90 m, and is accessed from the cinema hall on the ground floor via the single-flight staircases at each side of the stage.
The first floor of the Red Cross Building is the same in plan and size as the ground floor of the south block facing Kranjčevićeva street (26.30 x 12.90 m).
The disposition of the bearing walls and the various rooms is the same as on the ground floor(29). The wooden ceiling was either destroyed by fire or has fallen in, so that the first-floor premises are mostly open to the skies above the ground floor. The exterior woodwork was completely destroyed by fire, and the windows have been boarded up. An east-west corridor(30) provided access to the balcony of the cinema hall in the middle of the building, to the north. The balcony, of which the structure and parapet have survived, measures 9.10 x 4.15 m. The walls separating the balcony from the projection room, which measures 6.20 x 2.30 m, have also survived.
All the other first-floor rooms, which housed the Red Cross Society until 1992, are completely derelict. The ceilings and roof have not survived, and the roof beams have been destroyed. The only exception is a narrow balcony to the south, facing onto Kranjčevićeva street, and measuring 6.10 x 1.00 m, where the floor tiles have survived, but there is no access to the balcony.
The loft space of the building has been completely destroyed, with only one landing of the east staircase surviving. The technical documentation(31) that might have provided details of this storey has also been destroyed. The only access to the loft was via the east staircase. By analogy with the first floor, the loft probably measured 14.90 x 12.80 m(32). It had a gabled roof clad with sheet metal(33), and was lit by two symmetrically-placed south-facing windows measuring 60 x 60 cm, and west-facing side windows. Judging from the original photograph, the headroom in the loft would have been about 3.00 m at its highest point. According to the Red Cross Society employee, it was used only for storage.
The south front(34) was a roughly symmetrical composition with a central entrance measuring 290 x 280 cm, flanked on either side by two ground-floor windows measuring 170 x 180 cm with high parapets facing the street. Below these were the basement windows, measuring 170 x 80 cm. At the far ends were entrances measuring 225 x 270 cm with overlights of 225 x 80 cm.
The central entrance had a balcony above, with a masonry parapet 90 cm in height and 6.10 m wide, and three openings 1.00 m wide and 2.20 m high to the interior. These openings are separated by vertical façade bands 15 cm deep and 40 cm wide, rising from the balcony floor to the top of the surviving part of the south façade at a height of about 8.50 m(35).
At first-floor level, there are six west-facing windows measuring 80 x 140 cm, and four east-facing windows of the same size(36).
The south front is in extremely poor structural condition and at risk of structural collapse in the foreseeable future. Exposure to the elements has almost completely washed the plaster off the façade, leaving the brick products of which the façade was built either completely exposed or showing through the remains of the plaster.
The west façade is the side wall of the cinema hall. At ground-floor level, it has two entrances measuring 1.50 x 2.70 m, with a niche of the same size between them(37). Above are three ventilation openings measuring 50 x 60 cm(38). The entire façade is badly damaged, with the bricks visible under the plaster.
The east façade of the building, which is almost identical to the west, is also in very poor condition, showing the damaged and rusting remains of the horizontal ventilation ducts of the cinema hall.
The north façade is the rear wall, in the middle of which is the irregularly-shaped, solid wall face of the back of the cinema hall.
To the east and west are the side windows and doors of the rooms in the south block. Those on the west are boarded up and fitted with rebar grids, but those on the east are open(39), providing a glimpse of the derelict interior of the building.
The structure (bearing walls, girders, columns, frames and secondary beams of the cinema hall, etc.) is of reinforced concrete. The partition walls and the infill of the outside walls are of brick. The façades were finished with coloured plaster, and the exterior and interior woodwork was of quality timber.
The staircases were of stone resting on steel crossbeams.
The roof, which was largely of timber construction, was clad with galvanized iron.
The outside façade walls are 45 cm thick, as are the remains of the bearing walls inside the building. There are also the remains of inside walls of varying thickness, 25 cm, 20 cm and 12 cm.
The reinforced concrete frames of the cinema hall consisted of uprights 45 cm in width and crossbeams of 45 x 45 cm in section. The secondary reinforced concrete beams are 20 x 25 cm in section.
The basement ceiling is 2.40 m high, that of the ground floor 4.20 m, and that of the first floor 3.00 m. The ceiling of the cinema hall is 7.60 m high. The reinforced concrete beams of the south block between the ground and first floor are 40 cm thick. On these, some of the I profile 20 cm thick steel girders supporting the first-floor partition walls have survived.
3. Legal status to date
The Red Cross Building is on the List of Recorded, Provisionally Protected and Protected Immovable Cultural Monuments and Natural Heritage of Sarajevo Canton as item 1 – Red Cross Building, in section 6.5.03, “Other health-care and public health facilities”. Though on this list, the Red Cross Building has not been entered in the register of cultural monuments.
4. Research and conservation and restoration works
No particular investigative, conservation or restoration works were carried out on the building before the end of World War II.
During the latter half of the 20th century, routine maintenance works were carried out on the building, as were minor buildings works on the interior, in particular partitioning off the eastern part of the corridor, separating the east block where the Red Cross Society offices were from the central and west block, which was used largely by the film producing company running the rented Sutjeska cinema.
In 1991, work began to convert the central loft area into a flat, but the conversion was never completed.
In 1997, soon after the end of the 1992-1995 war in BiH, minor works were carried out to ensure the safety of passers-by. Two first-floor windows on the south front were walled up, and wooden scaffolding was erected, as were warning signs.
Also in 1997, an outline proposal for the revitalization of the building was drawn up by the firm Arhitekt (director Dragan Bijedić), which proposed converting the basement into a Red Cross kitchen and canteen, the ground floor into a pharmacy and dentist's surgery, and the cinema hall into an education centre. The plan was to locate the Red Cross Society's offices on the first floor, and to make five bedroom suites, a common room and a boiler room in the loft. According to the Red Cross Society staff, the design company also conducted a survey of the condition of the building, but this has not been made available.
In 2004 another design firm, New Way, headed by Amir Vuk, drew up an outline proposal which suggested retaining the exterior walls and façades of the building but carrying out a radical alteration to the interior, which would entail demolishing most of the surviving bearing structures and altering the form of and relocating the original staircases. The idea was to convert the ground floor of the south block into a spacious foyer leading to the cinema hall to the north. The first floor would be converted into an exhibition pavilion. The proposal was also to add another two storeys to the south block and the cinema hall to the north.
In June 2007 a permanent court-appointed expert, Damir Ferizović, estimated the market value of the badly damaged Red Cross Society building at 2,600,000.00 KM.
In 2007 the building was partly cleared and the openings were boarded up.
5. Current condition of the property
Since being swept by fire caused by incendiary munitions in 1992, the Red Cross building is in very poor condition. The roof structure has been almost completely destroyed. The ceiling joists and floor slabs have been largely destroyed(40). There are quantities of waste and building materials inside the building, piling up as more of the building falls in. Large pieces of reinforced concrete slab hanging from the walls pose a particular danger.
The north part of the cinema hall is open to the skies, and trees and weeds are growing there. The reinforced concrete structure and walls and the brick infill have survived.
The condition of the south front, with its solid brick infill, is critical, and much of the outside wall is at risk of collapse. This wall is a constant danger to passers-by in the heart of the city.
The condition of the structure within the building has not been examined, but it is dangerous even to enter the building, for which reason all the doors and windows have been boarded up or otherwise blocked off.
6. Specific risks
- danger of complete collapse, especially of the south front,
- lack of maintenance,
- adverse weather conditions.
III – CONCLUSION
Applying the Criteria for the adoption of a decision on proclaiming an item of property a national monument (Official Gazette of BiH nos. 33/02 and 15/03), the Commission has enacted the Decision cited above.
The Decision was based on the following criteria:
A. Time frame
C. Artistic and aesthetic value
C. iii. proportions
C. iv. composition
D. Clarity
D.iii. work of a major artist or builder
F. Townscape/landscape value
F. i. relation to other elements of the site
F. ii. meaning in the townscape
F. iii. the building or group of buildings is part of a group or site
G. Authenticity
G. i. form and design
G. v. location and setting
H. Rarity and representativity
H. i. unique or rare example of a certain type or style
The following documents form an integral part of this Decision:
- Copy of cadastral plan;
- Proof of title;
- Photodocumentation.
Bibliography
During the procedure to designate the monument as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina the following works were consulted:
1936. S. Tomić, Spomenica 1876-1936 (Commemorative Volume 1876-1935) p. 259, Red Cross Society of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Belgrade.
1939. letter from the Drina Banate Board of the Governing Board of the Red Cross of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, no. 1239
1944. letter from the Sarajevo County Board of the Croatian Red Cross to the Main Board of the Croatian Red Cross in Zagreb, Sarajevo, 10 January 1944
1997. P. Milošević, Arhitektura u kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Sarajevo 1918-1941) (Architecture in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia [Sarajevo 1918-1941]), Prosvjeta, Foča.
2007. D. Ferizović, Valuation of the Red Cross Society Building, no. 2 Kranjčevićeva, Sarajevo
(1) S. Tomić, Spomenica 1876-1936, p. 259, Red Cross Society of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, 1936.
(2) P. Milošević, Arhitektura u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Sarajevo 1918-1941), p. 169, Prosvjeta, Foča, 1997.
(3) P. Milošević, Arhitektura u kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Sarajevo 1918-1941), p. 170, Prosvjeta, Foča, 1997.
(4) Spomenica 1876-1936, p.., Red Cross Society of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, 1936.
(5) Helen Baldasar was born in Dubrovnik on 23 January 1894, and died on the island of Brač on 8 August 1970. He was one of the architects who introduced the ideas of moderns to Sarajevo in the years immediately following World War I. He attended secondary school in Split, and graduated from Technical College in Prague in 1921. From 1923 to 1932 Baldasar taught at the State Technical Secondary School in Sarajevo, and was also actively involved in design work. Facilities such as the swimming pool at Bembaša, the Red Cross building, the housing high-rise of Bratinska blagajna and the Rašidagić family are an essential part of any overview of modernist architecture in Sarajevo. He was also actively involved in exhibiting, and held the first Bosnia and Herzegovina arts and crafts exhibition in Sarajevo in 1924, with a group of other artists. In 1932 Helen Baldasar returned to teaching in the Secondary Technical School in Split, where he set up his own design bureau.
As an architect, his work falls into three stages. The first stage was marked by certain influences of the Czech baroque, expressed in the high roofs on residential and public buildings (the Ljubica Ivezić orphanage and the Damić house in Radićeva street in Sarajevo). The second stage was influenced by Czech modernism and cubism (the Rašidagić house and the Red Cross building in Sarajevo). The third period covers his work in Split, where there is a clear Bauhaus influence. P. Milošević, Arhitektura u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Sarajevo 1918-1941), p. 284, Prosvjeta, Foča, 1997.
(6) P. Milošević, Arhitektura u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Sarajevo 1918-1941), p. 170. Prosvjeta, Foča, 1997.
(7) It cost 2,521,336 dinars (in the currency of the day) to build and equip the property.
(8) The total expenditure in 1938 was 201,501.58 dinars, including charitable donations, with revenue of 366,620.62 dinars, indicating that the building was economically sustainable and that the Red Cross Society was well organized. Letter from the Drina Banate Board of the Main Board of the Red Cross of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in Belgrade no. 1239 of 1939.
(9) S. Tomić, Spomenica 1876-1936, p. 258, 259, Red Cross Society of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, 1936.
(10) In 1943, 167 sick and injured patients were brought to this accident and emergency room, for which the expenditure was 120,084.80 kuna. Letter from the County Board of the Croatian Red Cross in Sarajevo to the Main Board of the Croatian Red Cross in Zagreb, Sarajevo, 10 January 1944.
(11) No sooner was this modern complex opened than the people of Sarajevo began to call it Karingtonka.
(12) Account by a long-term Red Cross employee, Sarajevo, February 2009.
(13) Coincidentally, the building was hit during International Red Cross Week, which runs from 8 to 14 May.
(14) Until 1992 this part of the building housed the Triglav café, thus maintaining continuity with its original purpose – judging from a photograph taken in the 1930s, there was a café on the ground floor with an awning facing Kranjčevićeva street. The same photograph, which is the meagre but only source of direct information on the original appearance of the building and the streetscape, suggests something still more significant: the roof cornice on the east side of the Red Cross Building matched that of the next-door building to the east, which is of the same date. The angle at which the photograph was taken does not provide a clear view of the next-door building above the roof cornice.
(15) In the original design, the building included a mansard, which was completely destroyed by fire in 1992.
(16) In the background to the north are the remains of a chimney, which rises 4.50 m higher than this.
(17) The fire caused by shelling in 1992 completely destroyed the roof cladding and floor joists, along with all the woodwork and the interior fixtures and fittings. All that survived inside the building was the reinforced concrete structure and some of the brick walls. The whole of the interior is full of layers of rubbish and building materials.
(18) The entrance portal was destroyed in 1992. The opening has been closed off with rebar grids and boarded up to prevent people entering the building, as are all the other openings.
(19) Access to the eastern part of the building from this corridor was blocked by a brick partition wall built in the latter half of the 20th century, when the building was divided up for different users. The central entrance formed the entrance to the cinema, and the eastern part of the ground floor was reserved for the Red Cross Society, which had its own separate east entrance to the building.
(20) It is now possible to enter the cinema hall through an irregularly-shaped gap about 2 m high in the damaged wall separating the corridor from the former cinema hall.
(21) This staircase is completely buried under building materials and other waste matter.
(22) Unlike the identical east opening which leads out to the street via three steps, the west entrance is at street level, and it was possible to drive a car through it. Originally, the extension of this room linked Kranjčevićeva street and the inner courtyard.
(23) Until 1992, the hall was fitted with typical wooden cinema seats. It is now completely devastated, with not a single seat remaining.
(24) The balcony was fitted with seating for film-goers. It is now devastated and nothing remains of any seating or equipment.
(25) The cladding and steel roof structure have been completely destroyed. There is no sign of the stage or of the film screen, and after years of heavy rainfall and of the accumulation of soil, self-sown trees are growing where the stage once stood.
(26) There are external wall niches of the same size between these openings, suggesting that this niche was originally another entrance. This cannot be checked since the original blueprints, which were housed in the archives of the building, were destroyed by fire in 1992.
(27) There is a circular opening with a diameter of about 50 cm in the middle of this monolithic structure, through which rain and damp constantly enter this area.
(28) There is no documentation indicating where the showers of the public baths were located. However, since the basement, like the ground floor, consists of two blocks, east and west, with separate staircases between the two levels, it seems likely that there were separate baths for men and women in these separate blocks. According to an employee of the Red Cross Society in Sarajevo who has worked for the Society since the early 1970s, there was a coal shute through which coal was delivered to the coal store in the south-east basement area. This suggests that this part of the building, where there are rooms 4.30 m wide and 9.60 m in overall length, contained the coal store and boiler room, with the baths on the opposite, north side.
(29) This storey is totally derelict, and access is difficult or very risky.
(30) It is now possible to enter from the west staircase landing through a gap in the wall.
(31) There is a small-scale reproduction of drawings of the ground and first floor on p. 223 of P. Milošević's Arhitektura u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Sarajevo 1918-1941), Prosvjeta, Foča, 1997. Since the original blueprints were destroyed by fire along with the other files and archives, and the book does not include a drawing of the loft of the building, its size and form can be deduced solely from the photograph taken in the 1930s, the description by the long-term Red Cross Society employee, and an examination of the surviving traces of the loft in the building itself.
(32) The 1997 and 2004 proposals suggested extending this storey to the east and west to make it identical in plan with the storey below. A study of the photograph taken in the 1930s might suggest, wrongly, that this storey extended only over the central section of the building. A careful study of the remains of the building reveals west-facing windows of about 90 x 90 cm and the outlines of the roof cladding on the west wall, irrefutable evidence that the loft also extended to the sides.
(33) Damir Ferizović, permanent court-appointed expert – Valuation of the Red Cross Society Building, no. 2 Kranjčevićeva, p. 4, Sarajevo June 2007
(34) “...its outward appearance indicates the considerable influence of Czech modernism on the work of Sarajevan architects. The discreet decorative features on the entrance façade largely reflect the structure of the building. Inside the main hall, every element of this large space are used as a significant formal factor.” - Predrag Milošević, Arhitektura u kraljevini Jugoslaviji (Sarajevo 1918-41), p. 170, Prosvjeta, Foča, 1997.
(35) These vertical bands rose to the top of the destroyed mansard and beyond it by another 40 cm. The tops of the vertical bands on the south front were not destroyed by fire in 1992. A 1996 photograph shows the top of these bands and the Red Cross symbol at the top of the front of the building. This central element collapsed a few years after 1996.
(36) There were six openings on the east instead of four. The two openings at the west end of the east part of the building were bricked up by a Red Cross Society employee to ensure the safety of passers-by, to the orders of the inspection authorities, in late 1997. The room lit by these two windows was the first to be hit by the shell that set the building on fire.
(37) The original drawing suggests that there was another 60 cm wide opening at the northernmost end.
(38) The ventilation openings are set in clearly indicated rectangular panels of the same width as the openings and niche on the ground floor. These panels are the original openings, which were bricked up after World War II. At the northernmost end, the original opening of 60 x 110 cm, later bricked up, can clearly be seen.
(39) These openings have not been boarded up, but are blocked by a high wooden fence topped by metal spikes facing the high-rise building erected in Alipašina street at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries.
(40) With the exception of the thin reinforced concrete roof structure over the cinema hall, which formed the base for the roof cladding. Here too there are large holes and other damage, which means that this part of the building is almost as exposed to rain and damp as the rest of the building.
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