Re-connecting Mostar

Abstract

This graduation thesis aims to reactivate an old axis connecting two different parts of the city of Mostar. The choice of this particular corridor has been adopted not just because of its strategic location - it crosses the city from East to West, two sides that have been rebuilt after the Bosnian war without a coherent urban strategy - but also because every street, square, park and building along it belong to a common heritage, which after the Bosnian war is lost. Therefore, this axis ( I will name it Axis Rondo-Old HIT Square-Musala Square, due to the main squares that it crosses) is ideal for a design strategy, which will have a dual nature: renewing three degraded areas facing the axis and, at the same time, introducing into those spaces one of the most important, natural and partially forgotten heritage: the Neretva River. The use of a natural, dynamic and “memory keeper” element – the river - to connect those three spaces, in particular two squares and one ruin of a terrace garden, could represent the link missing in the Axis and create a new social use, enhancing a sense of responsibility for a common heritage that nowadays is mainly used as a public dump.