The Kaiser's Mosques

This book highlights an understudied experiment at the intersection of 19th-century European and Islamic architectural histories. It draws attention to a body of buildings designed by architects trained in Central Europe for use by Muslims in Habsburg ruled Bosnia-Herzegovina (1878-1918). They include mosques, madrasas, and other buildings corresponding to a traditional Islamic formal and functional typology. The composition and decoration, however, is the product of 19th-century European His toricist conduct. It became a prominent style for town halls and private residences; on occasion, it was also used for railway stations, schools, or hotels. The spread and concentration of buildings in this style in Bosnia is extraordinary. This monography not only fills a gap in an art history that has long turned a blind eye to Europe’s Southeast but also contributes to our understanding of European powers’ historical responses to the challenge of cultural diversity in territories under their control

ORIENTALIZING ARCHITECTURE IN NORTHERN BOSNIA UNDER HABSBURG RULE: EXAGGERATING ALTERITY AS A MEANS OF COHESION?

This paper offers preliminary insights into the phenomenality of Orientalizing styles of architecturein Bosnia-Herzegovina in the period of Austro-Hungarian rule. It examines in some detail threebuildings in Banja Luka and Gradiška, with brief detours to Brčko, Dubica, and Šamac, focusing onthe problem of decision-making in the planning and design process. This discussion is aided by planmaterial discovered in the relevant archives as well as contemporary periodicals. The inquiry willconclude with ruminations on this phenomenon’s geography: Did Orientalizing architecture inBosnia’s northern region, bordering Croatia-Slavonia, carry different meanings than in Sarajevo andother inland metropolises?</jats:p

The Kaiser's Mosques

This book highlights an understudied experiment at the intersection of 19th-century European and Islamic architectural histories. It draws attention to a body of buildings designed by architects trained in Central Europe for use by Muslims in Habsburg ruled Bosnia-Herzegovina (1878-1918). They include mosques, madrasas, and other buildings corresponding to a traditional Islamic formal and functional typology. The composition and decoration, however, is the product of 19th-century European His toricist conduct. It became a prominent style for town halls and private residences; on occasion, it was also used for railway stations, schools, or hotels. The spread and concentration of buildings in this style in Bosnia is extraordinary. This monography not only fills a gap in an art history that has long turned a blind eye to Europe’s Southeast but also contributes to our understanding of European powers’ historical responses to the challenge of cultural diversity in territories under their control

In search of the provincial artist: networks, services and ideas in the Ottoman Balkans and the question of structural change

This thesis seeks to shed light on the production of art and architecture in the Ottoman Empire – and more specifically its provinces in the European mainland – from the perspective of the artist, that is, the producer. Above all, I am interested in the question of the place we are to give to the individual artist in the historical narrative of the art and architecture in the Ottomans' European provinces between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. In recognition of the fact that the same individuals or workshops are recorded as involved in the construction and decoration of mosques, churches, residences, and other building types, I have studied works by both Islamic and Christian patrons and artists. In contrast to a traditional line in art-historical scholarship that supposes both the autonomy of art and creative genius underlying "great works of art," I am more interested in the "negative" factors in the processes of design and production, such as limitations due to traditions, conventions, and codes of decorum. I also study the "provincial artist" not merely in his relation to his better-known counterpart in the West or to singular personages in Istanbul, but as operating within a concrete system of Ottoman social practices. Rather than on the cases of artists whose careers were so exceptional that they were passably documented, the focus of my dissertation is on the identification and rationalization of trends, patterns, dynamics, and structures from a longue durée perspective