Workshop held in partnership with Association of Architects of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Center for Contemporary Culture KRAK (Hamze Hume bb, Bihać) 

25.3.2021 (online)

In the last several years, Bihać neighborhood Hatinac has been the subject of various transformations in terms of space and architecture. The most radical of them is the closure of the textile factory Kombiteks (an important business entity that at its peak employed about 2,000 workers) and its transformation into a spatial unit adapted to new needs. Other significant transformations in the broader perspective of the settlement are the public call for speculative reconsideration of the conversion of the local water tower, which eventually lost its primary function (2017) and the launch of the Center for Contemporary Culture KRAK on the ruins of the former Kombiteks Workers' Club (2020). Numerous other economic and commercial initiatives that have taken root in the industrial zone of Kombiteks also contribute to the transformation and re-dynamizing of the life of Hatinac neighborhood.

Maintaining discursive content such as Kombiteks 1982: Transition and Reinterpretation of Memories (2016) and the art exhibition Artefacts of the Future Past (2017) in the former Kombiteks Workers' Club, and the scientific symposium Industrial Heritage in Bihać between Reality and Vision (2017) in Kombiteks' closed spinning mill represent the ideological base from which it is possible to observe the functional and utopian vision of the transformation of that neighborhood. The fact that it is a neighborhood located only a few minutes from the center of Bihać which has recreational potential due to the flow of the Una River with several striking beaches, raises questions about the new spatial dynamics of that part of the city.

The proclamation of the administration of the City of Bihać to support the establishment and emergence of the so-called "Artistic zone" around the KRAK Center is an important support for long-term spatial planning of cultural and creative content that would give both the neighborhood and the city a whole new urban dynamic.

In this regard, several issues can serve as an initiation of the collaborative project Hatinac: Behind the Structures. Is it even possible to revive old and neglected spatial points? How to bring life back to abandoned buildings of the industrial past? To what extent is it possible to articulate completely new spatial values and what is the role of architects, urban planners, designers, artists and the local population? Can social practice and the political formation of solidarity animate and encourage new forms of thinking and acting in the local community? 

The goal of this project is research ethnographic penetration into the social fabric behind structures, facades and scenery (behind the visible and obvious), of Bihać neighborhood Hatinac and creating research and detection tools through collaboration of different actors (students, teachers, independent practitioners, city authorities, neighborhoods). In doing so, it is important to affirm multidisciplinary processes through the search for a project task within which weaknesses, threats and challenges are detected. At the same time, the intention is to define alternative methodological protocols which would be visualized and materialized for the needs of the final exhibition in various media and forms (photography, video, poster, object, sculpture, design, documentary, scenography, social interaction, etc.). 

With this project, the aim is to start a research process with the goal of articulating new concepts of social inclusion. Local urban geography serves as a thematic framework for visualizing a new and sustainable future by holding an exhibition and symposium and presenting the publication of conceptual solutions to participants from the Faculty of Architecture in Sarajevo, Department of Architecture of Burch International University in Sarajevo, Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Banja Luka, Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo and the Textile Department of Technical Faculty in Bihać.

Detailed program available via link.