Industrial Legacy of Electric Powerplants in Bosnia andHerzegovina

The Industrial revolution has had a significant impact on the formation of social and spatial circumstances of our present day life. In the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina intense industrialization in the 19th century, brought by Austro-Hungarian Empire, shaped the urban morphology of cities, countryside and lifestyle. The most visible changes were connected to railroad, industrial coal and wood processing complexes, but one that will bring about most of the changes and still have an impact is related to the use of water, from earliest times in form of dams and watermills (in case of Sarajevo at the centre of historic core), and in industrialization hydro and steam power stations. The production of electricity caused changes in landscape due to artificial lakes, light up the cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and introduced the early form of public transport by tram that still shapes the urban morphology of Sarajevo. Water is a basic subject matter of many analyses, and it is considered a principal existential and vital generator of the formation, sustainability and transformation of different types of cities. The legacy has maintained until today since one of the major industries and export is the electric power. Several of these early plants are located in current urban areas, neglected and unused. It will be necessary to find adequate restoration and revitalization methods that will deal with the preservation of the physical aspects, and its immeasurable legacy not manifested only in these historic buildings but as a symbol as Tesla said at the speech at the opening ceremony of Niagara Falls Plant “(…) a true monument of enlightenment and peace (…)”. Industrial complexes and its architecture are a specific form of heritage. One can commonly associate heritage with aesthetically pleasing buildings, but industrial heritage is more ambiguous - in some instances it is seen as powerful creative force but partly disruptive or destructive at the same time. The restoration process needs to be interactive, programmatic and progressive in order to represent the spirit of innovation and progress brought to them. This paper was presented during the 2nd International Symposium on Cultural Heritage and Legal Issues, organized in October 2015 by ICOMOS Slovenia with the support of the Council of Europe, the Institute for the Protection of Cultural heritage in Slovenia, the Slovenian Ministry of Culture and TICCIH Slovenia.