33rd session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO
Seville from 22 to 30 June 2009
Members of the BiH delegation, that attended the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Seville, was: Dubravko Lovrenoviæ, Member of Commission to Preserve National Monuments, Almir Šahoviæ, Ambassador of BiH in France and Biljana Gutiæ-Bjelica, Secretary of the Commission for Cooperation of BiH with UNESCO.
The most important item for Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the voluminous agenda for the session, was the item 7B – State of conservation of properties inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger: Area of the Old Bridge in Mostar.
In the written material, that was presented to the participants of the session, the World Heritage Committee reflected generally to the genesis of the problems related to construction of the Ruza hotel in the buffer zone of the cultural heritage, that is inscribed to the World Heritage List, and also to the issue of monitoring of cracks that were identified at the surface of the Old Bridge.
Among other things, the Report presented by the World Heritage Committee stressed the progress that was achieved as a result of the mission of ICOMOS and ICCROM experts who visited Mostar from 11 to 18 October 2008 with the aim to find a solution to integrate the Ruza hotel to the existing architectonic volume of the urban tissue. The resolution of the mission was presented, that external elements of the hotel should be redesigned, while the present height of the building would be preserved.
The World Heritage Committee approved the proposal presented by the expert mission and put accent in its Report to the necessity that the state of BiH should deliver new façade design for the Ruza hotel to the Institution by 01 February 2010, that would allow for universal value of the old Bridge to be adequately preserved. The façade redesign shall be discussed at the 34th session of the Committee in 2010.
As regards the cracks that were noticed at the surface of the Old Bridge, the Committee suggests further monitoring process that would assure structural stability of the Bridge.
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