Natural Caves and Architecture Carved in the Rocks in Bosnia and  Herzegovina

Ahmet Hadrovic

doi:10.30564/jsbct.v4i2.4976

Authors

Ahmet Hadrovic Faculty of Architecture, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/jsbct.v4i2.4976

Abstract

Students of the Faculty of Architecture in Sarajevo, through the courseArchitecture of the Old Age, were able to get acquainted with “architecturecarved in rock”, and only a very limited number of examples - the architecture of ancient Egypt, ancient Greek architecture in Asia Minor (Lycia),and the architecture of ancient Persia. Many examples of this architecturalexpression remained unknown to them: the architecture of ancient andmedieval India, the architecture of ancient and medieval China, the architecture of the ancient Middle East (the area of today’s Israel, Jordan, SaudiArabia), vernacular architecture around the world from different historicalperiods. As a teacher at the Faculty of Architecture in Sarajevo, the author,after switching to the education of architecture students in accordance withthe “Bologna process” (2003), presented “architecture carved in the rocks”through a series of subjects, through all levels of education (undergraduate,master’s and doctoral studies), within the framework of processing narrower topics of architecture: constructive systems in architecture, bioclimaticarchitecture, architecture as an energy system, architecture in context. Thecomplex process of creating architecture and explaining its appearance waselaborated by the author (1988) in his doctoral dissertation. The topic “Architecture Carved in Rocks” was elaborated according to this model, whichon the one hand confirmed its applicability, and on the other hand enabledstudents to look at the highly dispersed appearance of architecture in an extremely systematic way, without losing sight of its basic elements: environment, man, boundaries and perspectives. The aim of this work is to show(and through examples in Bosnia and Herzegovina) that natural caves, withmore or less “refining”, are still used today, and that “carving architectureinto rocks” is an all-time and planetary phenomenon.

Keywords:

Carved architecture; Bosnia and Herzegovina

References

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