English: Garden as a microcosm of city
M. Liu (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Saskia de Wit – Mentor (TU Delft - Landscape Architecture)
Stavros Kousoulas – Mentor (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
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Abstract
Mostar, a city famous for its world-known Old Bridge built in the Ottoman period, has experienced the violent atrocities during the Bosnian conflict from 1992 to 1995. After the war, despite its very mixed population, the city’s urban space now is not shared by the different communities. Instead, It is fragmented and polarised by the two biggest national groups, leading to a Croat west bank and a Bosniac east bank. Whether physically or psychologically, the city Mostar is considered a divided city.
Under this extremely difficult and complex context in the post-war situation, any proposal is facing tough pressure to coordinate and implement. That’s why transforming a place full of potential to a garden as a microcosm could be a good choice to first light the current situation.
In order to address the problems, a garden as a microcosm of the city Mostar is supposed to help to inspire how to re-introduce the river to the city again, improve the living quality of inhabitants and empower visitors to develop different perspectives related to the research objective. By gathering and expressing the features which reflect the history of the city’s development and culture into one coherent, memorable and recognizable place. It also expresses the desire to re-create or to redefine what has been lost during the development of the city. Visitors of this garden could experience directly the beauty of Mostar spatially but are also encouraged to empower different perspectives towards to city Mostar itself, to develop another version of what is possible in Mostar in future linking what happened before.