City Hall

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, December 2019
Sarajevo, is a city literally on the fault line of Eastern and Western civilisation. The old Ottoman city center of Bascarsija runs into the Austro_Hungarian area and invisibly splits the city in two. It was once renowned as a religious melting pot, earning it the epithet 'The Jerusalem of Europe'. Within a few blocks you can find Catholic and Orthodox Cathedrals, Synagogues and Mosques, but since the war and the siege of Sarajevo from 1992 until 1996 the population is divided. The Jews left during this conflict and the Orthodox Serbs live now in the Republika Serbska side of Sarajevo.
Two violent events thrust Sarajevo into the world history; the assassination of the Austria-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian Nationalist that sparked WW I and the 4 year siege during the brutal Balkan conflict in the 90's. Sarajevo is still licking its wounds from this recent conflict and the scars are still very visible throughout the city. But the city is regaining its cosmopolitain welcoming spirit.
The city hall of Sarajevo was build during the Austro Hungarian era in Moorish style and became the National Library in 1949. It was seriously damaged by a Serbian bomb during the siege, destroying the 2000 irreplaceable manuscripts, books and documents. Rebuild and reopened as the city hall in 2014 and now open to tourists and visitors