URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS OF HISTORIC AREAS: A CASE STUDY OF NEZIR-AGA MOSQUE COMPLEX, THE OLD TOWN OF MOSTAR
City is a living organism in a continuous evolutive process; its historic core evolves with it as well. Current transformations create ever more tensions between the need for preservation of historic urban areas, being the identification parameters of culture and the need for modernisation and inclusion into flow of contemporary city life. This paper aims to provide insight into intricate action that will allow both, preservation and development to work together to create better living conditions. All complexities and dualities encountered though the processes of urban transformation are tools for generating guidelines and procedures concerning the interventions within a historic urban area. Systematic research and analyses of the past, of the changes that occurred in previous times, as well as their adequate evaluation is the essence of decision making in urban transformations, which is further supported by the Case study presented. In order to be successful, transformative processes must be in agreement with not only the physical manifestation of heritage, but also with the underlying processes and circumstances that created the place in all of its peculiarities and uniqueness. A methodological procedure is established and defined by actions on design projects and urban spatial entities that is a contribution to the general theoretical background of urban design.