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Heritage · ·5 min read

Sarajevo — the Vijećnica reopened on 17 July 2014, twenty-two years after Serb shells burned it, and the new façade is a very careful copy

The 1896 Vijećnica burned on the night of 25–26 August 1992, when Serb incendiary shells from four hill positions set fire to the National Library that had been inside it since 1949. Two million books gone. One librarian, Aida Buturović, killed the following day carrying books out. Twenty-two years of intermittent reconstruction — cost around KM 25 million — and it reopened on 17 July 2014. The new façade is a very careful copy of the old one.

By Nedim Hadzimahmutovic · Sarajevo

On the night of 25 August 1992, at around 22:30, Serb forces on the hills around Sarajevo opened a coordinated artillery barrage on the Vijećnica, the 1896 Habsburg-era City Hall that had been holding the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1949. Twenty-five incendiary mortar rounds from four hill positions — Trebević, Zlatište, Grdonj, and Poljine — hit the building over about ninety minutes. Conventional shells hit the approach routes to prevent the fire brigade from getting close. The water district had been cut a month earlier, so blocking the fire brigade was almost belt-and-braces work.

The library burned all night. By dawn on 26 August, most of it was ashes. Estimates of what was lost vary — the collection had never been fully catalogued — but the consensus figure is around two million books, journals, and manuscripts. Sarajevo University’s entire humanities and social sciences library. The Bosnian language’s largest single collection.

The next day, 27 August, the librarian Aida Buturović was killed by a sniper while carrying salvageable books out of the still-burning building. She was 33.

Twenty-two years later, on 17 July 2014, the building reopened.

Why it took so long

The reconstruction of the Vijećnica started, in a sense, in 1996 — the shell had been secured from further collapse, some rubble cleared, and provisional repairs made to the roof. Serious rebuilding did not begin until the mid-2000s. The project ran through four distinct phases, each with its own funding round:

  • Phase 1 (mid-1990s to early 2000s): shell stabilisation and emergency roof.
  • Phase 2 (early to mid-2000s): exterior stonework — the striped sandstone-and-brick façade that gives the building its unmistakable look — restored and, where destroyed, replaced.
  • Phase 3 (2007–2012): interior structural work, including the reconstruction of the central octagonal hall with its stained-glass dome. Cost: about KM 4.6 million (roughly €2.37 million).
  • Phase 4 (2012–2014): interior fittings, the ceremonial rooms, the stained-glass restoration, and preparation for reopening. Cost: about KM 14 million (roughly €7.23 million).

The full 22-year cost is generally given as around KM 25 million (about €13 million). Funding came from the European Commission, the Austrian government (which had, of course, built the thing originally), Spain, Hungary, and the City of Sarajevo. Bosnian Serb officials from Republika Srpska contributed nothing formally, though a small contribution came from private Serb donors in Sarajevo. The Serbian government of the day did not participate.

The original planned reopening was 28 June 2014, the hundredth anniversary of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand on the corner one block west of the building, by the Latin Bridge. That date slipped by three weeks; the actual reopening was 17 July 2014, with a ceremony attended by Bosniak, Croat, and Bosniak-Muslim officials and one visibly reluctant Bosnian Serb minister.

How faithful the reconstruction is

The building that reopened in 2014 is, structurally and visually, very close to what Karlo Paržik drew in 1891, what Alexander Wittek reworked in 1892–93 before falling ill and dying in 1894, and what Ćiril Iveković finished for the 1896 opening. The exterior sandstone-and-brick striping is the same pattern. The corner turrets are the same shape. The central octagonal hall with its stained-glass ceiling has been reconstructed to the original geometry — the coloured glass, which had all been destroyed, was reproduced from surviving pre-1992 photographs.

The interior detailing is a shade cleaner than the original. The wood carving in the ceremonial rooms is a modern reconstruction rather than restoration of surviving work — most of the original interior woodwork was ashes. But the geometry, the proportions, the colour scheme, and the decorative programme match the pre-1992 photographs.

The building is now used for three functions: city-council ceremonial meetings (a handful of times a year, mostly protocol events); a set of permanent and temporary exhibitions on the ground and first floors, including a small permanent exhibition on the 1992 fire and Aida Buturović; and guided public tours. The National and University Library, which used to be housed here, is not moving back — it operates from a temporary building elsewhere in the city and a permanent purpose-built library is a project for the next decade.

What is inside now

Ground floor:

  • A permanent exhibition on the 1992 fire. Photographs, a partly-burned book from the salvaged remainder, a text panel on Aida Buturović. Small. Careful. Reads better if you are there for the fire specifically rather than trying to see the whole building.
  • A rotating exhibition space with Bosnian contemporary art and heritage shows.

First and second floors:

  • The central octagonal hall with the stained-glass dome overhead. Reconstructed to the original geometry; the glass is new. Photographing straight up is what people do; do it slowly and let others get in front of you.
  • The ceremonial council chamber with its decorative programme. Wood carving is new, colour palette is faithful.

Outside:

  • The stone tablet at the main entrance carries an inscription in Bosnian and English: “Ne zaboravi. Zapamti i opominji.” — “Do not forget. Remember and warn.” It is one of the more restrained war memorials in the city.

What happens next

The Vijećnica is not, in 2026, the National Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That library — the collection that survived the fire, plus what has been rebuilt from donations, plus digital re-acquisitions — is housed in temporary premises across the river. There is a long-running plan to build a new purpose-built National Library elsewhere in the city and eventually move the collection into it. The Vijećnica would then remain what it now is: a civic ceremonial space and a museum of itself.

For the visitor: buy the ~10 KM ticket, go inside, look up at the dome, read the fire exhibition on the ground floor, and pay attention to how much of the current building is 1896 and how much is 2014. Both dates matter.

Twenty-two years, four rebuild phases, KM 25 million, and one librarian’s name on a plaque. It is more or less back.

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