Fire Prevention in Ottoman and Habsburg Building Codes for Bosnia and their Application in Travnik

Abstract

The city of Travnik, located in central Bosnia, served as an administrative center of the Ottoman province between 1699 and 1851, with only short interruptions. In 1878, the Congress of Berlin awarded the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy rights of occupation for this Ottoman province. The following year, the new administration already faced its first big fire, which wiped out a major part of downtown Sarajevo. A new building code, which tried to minimize future hazard risks and was soon valid for all of Bosnia, was established in 1880. In September 1903, two major fires hit Travnik. The Ottoman administrative building used by the new officials was already fire-improved, so it survived the fires without sustaining any serious dam age. The same cannot be said for the traditional residential neighborhoods at the foot of Travnik castle, which burnt down to their foundations. The mosques in Travnik that were constructed mostly of wood were damaged severely. Austro-Hungarian administration officials identified the traditional way of building as a serious risk for all of Bosnia and tried to counterbalance by implementing the new regulations rigidly in their post-fire reconstruction program. They seem to have developed a more secure ‘mosque building model type’, which they implemented in the re-erection of the Lončarica, Zulići, Kahvica and Šumećka mosques. While rebuilding the Varoška and Lukačka mosques, the distinct ‘official’ style of Habsburg-Bosnia [1], a blend of various architectural ele ments associated with ‘the Orient’ that the literature tends to name ‘pseudo-Moorish’, was used.

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References

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