Status of monument -> National monument
Published in the Official Gazette of BiH, no. 03/10.
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 8 to 14 September 2009 the Commission adopted a
D E C I S I O N
I
The historic building of the Konak – Town Hall – in Gračanica 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. 3032 (new survey), cadastral municipality Gračanica, title deed no. 423, corresponding to c.p. no. 15/19 (old survey), Land Register entry no. 771, c.m. Gračanica, Municipality Gračanica, 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 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:
- conservation and restoration works on the Konak Town Hall shall be permitted, including 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;
- works designed to ensure the sustainable use of the building shall be permitted, with the approval of the relevant ministry and under the expert supervision of the heritage protection authority;
- all works that could endanger the National Monument are prohibited;
- the National Monument may be used for its original purpose;
- the monument should be accessible to the public;
- the damage to the façade shall be made good, with the approval of the relevant ministry and under the expert supervision of the heritage protection authority;
- all elements (the air-conditioning units) detrimental to the original design of the main façades of the building shall be removed;
- the dropped ceilings concealing the original ceiling construction in the offices shall be removed, making good any damage and leaving the ceilings exposed;
- the temporary toilet block between the east wing and the stairwell shall be removed;
- the roof structure and damage to the bearing walls shall be examined.
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 Federal Ministry responsible for regional planning, the Federation 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: 02-2-40/09-56
9 September 2009
Sarajevo
Chair of the Commission
Amra Hadžimuhamedović
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 18 December 2002, Gračanica Municipality submitted a petition to designate the immovable property of the Konak, the former town hall in Gračanica, as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Pursuant to the law, 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 Konak or Town Hall in Gračanica was built in the pseudo-Moorish manner as a Konak (residence) in 1887, and converted into the Town Hall in 1891. Though the architect is not known, the building is a good example of the style that was adopted in Bosnia during the Austro-Hungarian period, combining features of Classical revival and the pseudo-Moorish manner – merging the principal modern European styles with that of the region. Pseudo-Moorish features are to be seen on the façades, in the form of the two-tone colour-scheme, entrance portal, windows, and painted relief decoration.
The Konak-Town Hall in Gračanica is of great townscape value in the urban fabric.
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, architectural drawings and photographs;
- Details of works on the property, etc;
- The condition of the property;
- A copy of the cadastral plan;
- A copy of the Land Register entry;
- 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 Konak-Town Hall in Gračanica is in the centre of the town, at no. 1 Mula Mustafa Bašeskija street, next to its own park, forming the entrance to the building.
The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot no. 3032 (new survey), cadastral municipality Gračanica, title deed no. 423, corresponding to c.p. no. 15/19 (old survey), Land Register entry no. 771, c.m. Gračanica, Municipality Gračanica, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Historical information
Gračanica came into being in mediaeval times near an iron mine known as Gradčanica. Gračanica fell to the Ottomans for the first time in 1463, only to come under Hungary again in 1464, before coming under Ottoman rule again in 1520. In 1572 it became the seat of a large kadiluk (area under the jurisdiction of a qadi, Islamic judge/administrator), extending from the river Spreča to the river Sava and taking in the towns of Srebrenik, Gradačac, Orašje, Modriča and Šamac. From 1600 it became a significant centre of Bosnian trade and crafts, with a čaršija and at least eight mahalas, with the same number of mosques.
The Gračanica čaršija began to take shape on its present site and with its present basic urban characteristics after 1695, when the Austrian army made its way down the river Bosna valley, laying waste and torching Gračanica and many other towns (Dobor, Doboj, Maglaj and Sarajevo). This was a turning-point in the spatial and urban development of the kasaba (small town) of Gračanica and its čaršija, following which it acquired a new face, which it has essentially retained to this day. During the Austro-Hungarian period, Gračanica was a county town in the Zvornik District.
The Konak-Town Hall in Gračanica was originally built as a Konak in 1887, and later converted into the Town Hall. The name of the builder is not known, but it was probably built by the same craftsmen who built the Osman kapetan medresa in Gračanica. The Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina possessed the documentation for the alteration of the Konak into the Town Hall. The building was surveyed and drawn by Johann Kellner and certified by Edmund Stix on 19 March 1891(1).
The Konak-Town Hall in Gračanica was initially the property of the Bosnia and Herzegovina provincial erar and later became national property of the Federal National Republic of Yugoslavia. It houses the Gračanica Council offices.
2. Description of the property
The Konak-Town Hall in Gračanica was built in the pseudo-Moorish manner. This manner is the second most widespread style of architecture of the Austro-Hungarian period in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In terms of its origins and the way in which decorative and secondary architectural elements from original Muslim monuments, mainly those of North Africa and Spain, are applied, the pseudo-Moorish manner is just one of many forms of eclecticism: a romantic aspiration to create a distinctive architectural expression while respecting the local tradition. The means and expression used to achieve the pseudo-Moorish manner are merely the ornamentation of the façade, with elements from regional Muslim schools, usually that of the architecture of the Maghreb and Spain.
On the Konak-Town Hall in Gračanica, elements of the pseudo-Moorish manner are to be seen on the façades, while the interior has Secessionist features(2).
The building is E-shaped in plan, with the axis of symmetry through the entrance portal and staircase dividing the building into two sections. It has a basement under the west wing, a ground floor and a first floor, and an overall footprint as measured on the outside of 32.40 x 20.30 m. The rectangular body of the building measures 32.40 x 11.30 m, and the wings facing onto the north courtyard are rectangular with sides of 9 x 10 m. The staircase between the two wings is rectangular, with sides of 4.3 and 4.8 m.
The basement extends under the western part of the rectangular body of the building, and measures 17.95 x 11.30 m. A steep flight of sixteen steps leads down into a rectangular vestibule of 17.10 x 3.85 m, off which to the south are two archive rooms, the first measuring 9.675 x 5.50 m and the second 6.6 x 5.5 m. The vestibule and both archive rooms have brick barrel-vaulted ceilings lying east-west. Light enters the basement through small windows, four to the south and two to the west, which have a widening splay towards the inside to let in more light and air.
The entrance to the building is in the axis of the south façade, and is accentuated by two stone steps and a portal opening onto the entrance hallway which leads in turn to the central hall or waiting area. This lies east-west and measures 22.85 x 4.00 m. The double-flight staircase leading to the first floor is in the axis of the entrance doorway. To the east of the entrance, at the end of the building, is the municipal cadastral office; beyond the waiting area to the east was once the qadi’s office and is now that of the head of the cadastral department. The ground floor of the east wing housed the Land Register, Archive and toilet block; the offices are now used by the accounts department. To the west of the entrance were three offices for the surveyor and construction engineer. Beyond the central hall was a room for the domestic servant which, with another room in the west wing, formed her living quarters. The west wing also formerly contained three prison cells. To the north, off the corridor beside the cells, was the prisoners’ yard.
A double-flight stone staircase leads to the first floor. Here, above the central ground-floor hall, is a rectangular waiting room running east-west and measuring 18 x 4 m. There were six offices along the south façade, used by representatives of the military, political representatives, and as meeting rooms etc. The offices in the eastern part of the first floor are now used by the mayor and his chief of staff. The west wing contains three offices, now used by the other council departments.
The loft is reached by a double-flight staircase. The hipped roof is of classic timber construction, visible in the loft space and in a good state of preservation.
The foundations of the building are of stone, and all the walls of solid brick. The basement walls are 70 cm thick, those of the ground floor 60 cm, and on the first floor 45 cm. The ceiling construction over the basement and ground floor consists of steel T profiles with brick infill, while over the first floor it consists of the usual wooden ceiling joists. The stone staircase has stone-flagged treads. The floors of the central hall and waiting area are paved with small (10 x 10 cm) flagstones in red and yellow; the loft space has a brick floor. The roof is tiled.
The façades of the building are painted in the alternating bands of red and yellow typical of the pseudo-Moorish manner. The part of the basement with its low windows, also forming the socle of the building, is faced with stone. The ground floor façade terminates in a string course separating it from the first floor, which in turn terminates with a cornice supporting the eaves, thus articulating the building horizontally. Below the string course and roof cornice are additional painted bands. The moulded stone string course and painted band and the cornice-and-band combination feature on all the façades of the buildings except the stairwell, which has only a painted band and stone string course.
The building’s principal façades are the south or entrance façade and the east and west side façades. The south façade is also the main frontispiece, dominated by the entrance portal in the central axis of the building. There are four rectangular ground-floor windows on either side – east and west – of the portal, repeated on both side façades, which have seven such windows each. Those on the west façade were later fitted with iron shutters, constituting elements of the pseudo-Moorish manner. The south façade has nine first-floor windows terminating in horseshoe arches, with another seven on each of the side façades. This type of window is another typical feature of the pseudo-Moorish manner, the clearest inspiration for which is to be found in the Muslim architecture of the Cordoban caliphate in Spain and the Maghreb. The north façade of the west wing has a door at ground-floor level, but no openings on the first floor. The east façade of the west wing and the west façade of the east wing each have three rectangular ground-floor windows and three horseshoe-arched first-floor windows. A doorway at ground-floor level leads from the stairwell set centrally between the wings onto the council’s courtyard; above, on the first landing, are two horseshoe-arched windows, with another on the second landing. The north façade of the rectangular body of the building has one rectangular ground-floor window and one horseshoe-arched first-floor window on each side between the side wings and the stairwell, set in panels east and west of the stairwell.
The entrance portal is the most striking pseudo-Moorish architectural feature of the façade. The architectural elements that were used as models for the design of the portal are to be found in the Fatimid and Mamluk periods of Muslim architecture in North Africa. The wooden entrance door is double-valved and decorated with a geometric design composed of strips of wood. Each valve has a single elongated rectangular panel within which are three rhomboid panels, top, middle and bottom. The overlight above the door is fitted with a wrought iron grille composed of rhomboid panels. The portal consists of a rectangular moulded frame with pilasters to the sides, of which the capitals are rectangular in section. The architraval section of the portal bears a relief decoration consisting of a band of abstract floral motifs. Beneath the moulded cornice of the portal is a row of consoles in the form of stalactites; the cornice itself is crowned by a stepped parapet of the kind typical of the Fatimid period. To the right and left of the portal are wrought-iron light fittings in the Secessionist manner.
The rectangular ground-floor windows have moulded stone frames and sills. The parapets of the ground-floor windows are rectangular panels with a pronounced frame. Over the ground-floor windows are rectangular panels with a two-tone painted decoration in the form of a flat arch of interlocking ashlar blocks.
The painted band below the moulded string course above the ground floor consists of rectangular panels painted yellow and framed inside and out in red. These panels are the width of the windows and of the spaces between them.
The first-floor windows are rectangular, terminating in horseshoe arches. Above the horizontal stone string course above the first floor is a rectangular plinth on which stand pilasters (rectangular in section) and capitals bearing a horseshoe arch echoing that of the window. The parapet is painted two-tone and has a projecting window sill. A relief decoration, again painted in two colours, fills the space above the stone arch, in the width of the stone frame with pilasters. This decoration is in the form of a geometric design with a central circular medallion.
The painted band above the first-floor windows is separated by horizontal bands of yellow above the windows and below the cornice. The area between the bands is filled with panels the width of the windows and of the spaces between them, containing a geometric relief decoration, which is somewhat more elaborate over the windows, consisting of a central stylized flower and rectangular panels to the sides.
The courtyard belonging to the Konak-Town Hall in Gračanica is to the north of the building. It is not known when the prisoners’ yard of the west wing was demolished. The north courtyard contained two single-storey buildings. The first was rectangular in plan, lying north-east behind the west wing of the Konak-Town Hall, on the site of the former prisoners’ yard, and had a gabled roof. The other lay east-west and was T-shaped in plan, with a projection to the north; this building had a hipped roof.
3. Legal status to date
The property was not listed in the Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of BiH, and thus not a protected monument.
4. Research and conservation works
There are no details of any research or conservation works on the building.
The following works have been carried out on the building at various times:
- 1987: the original ceiling structure of steel T profiles and brick infill over the central hall was replaced by a reinforced concrete slab;
- 1988: the basement was renovated;
- 2000: the south façade was renovated;
- 2002: the rooms to the west of the entrance were altered to create a single counter hall. A dropped ceiling of plasterboard on a substructure was installed above the central ground-floor hall and the first-floor waiting room. A single-storey building was erected between the east wing and the stairwell, serving as the visitors’ toilet block.
5. Current condition of the property
The findings of an on-site inspection of the building on 13 August 2009 are as follows;
- the Konak-Town Hall in Gračanica is in good condition;
- damage to the two-tone finish of the façade was observed on the west and parts of the north façade;
- an air conditioning unit has been installed on the south façade and another on the west;
- the painted ceiling of T profile with infill forming a vault can still be seen in the office of the head of the cadastral department on the ground floor and that of the mayor’s chief of staff on the first floor. The other offices have been fitted with dropped ceilings;
- the roof structure is in good condition. Cracks were observed in the bearing pilasters supporting the roof over the stairwell;
- the buildings in the courtyard (two single-storey buildings) north of the council offices have been demolished;
- a new building has been erected abutting onto the north façade of the west wing, which will house the counter hall, kitchen and other facilities. The existing door leading from the ground floor into the north courtyard has been retained, and a new door identical to the ground-floor door has been pierced at first-floor level. The building is L-shaped in plan, forming an extension of the west façade for 22 m and of 32 m to the north of the building, which is identical to the length of the Konak-Town Hall building. The west wing is 10 m in width, the same as that of the Konak-Town Hall, and the north wing of the new building is 13 m wide. The entrance to the new building is in the north courtyard behind the Konak-Town Hall. It is a two storey building of the same height as the Konak-Town Hall. The façades are modern in style, and the building has a hipped roof. It houses the counter hall and ancillary offices, the council’s IT centre, two stairwells, a lift and a toilet block. The first floor contains a kitchen, offices, toilet block and communications. The attic storey contains the Council Chamber and ancillary facilities. On 13 August 2009 the concrete and masonry works on the top storey were in their final stages.
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
B. Historical value
C. Artistic and aesthetic value
C.iii. proportions
C.iv. composition
C.v. value of details
C.vi. value of construction
D. Clarity
D.ii. evidence of historical change
D.iv. evidence of a particular type, style or regional manner
F. Townscape/landscape value
F.ii. meaning in the townscape
The following documents form an integral part of this Decision:
- Copy of cadastral plan;
- Copy of Land Register entry;
- Photodocumentation;
- Drawings.
Bibliography
During the procedure to designate the monument as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina the following works were consulted:
1984. Planning Bureau of the City of Zagreb. Regulatory Plan for Gračanica Town Centre. Zagreb: 1984
1987. Krzović, Ibrahim. Arhitektura Bosne i Hercegovine 1878-1918 (Architecture of BiH 1878-1918) (catalogue), exhibition design and selection of exhibits. Sarajevo: Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1987.
1994. Kulenović, Dr. Salih. Gračanica i okolina, Antropogeografske i etnološke odlike (Gračanica and its Environs: Anthropogeographic and Ethnological Features). Tuzla: Museum of Eastern Bosnia, 1994.
1998. Kurto, N. Arhitektura Bosne i Hercegovine, Razvoj Bosanskog stila (Architecture of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Development of the Bosnian Style). Sarajevo: Sarajevo Publishing, International Peace Centre, 1998.
2005. Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Exhibition catalogue: “Projekti (skice i planovi) sakralnih objekata u fondovima arhiva Bosne i Hercegovine 1878-1918” (Designs [drawings and plans] for Religious Buildings in the Holdings of the Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1878 – 1918). Sarajevo: 2005
Documentation of the Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(1) The names of the signatories to the project were identified by analyzing the signatures on this project and on projects from the exhibition catalogue “Projekti (skice i planovi) sakralnih objekata u fondovima arhiva Bosne i Hercegovine 1878-1918”
(2) The stair rail of the double-flight staircase
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