A Master Plan to Rebuild Sarajevo

This study will exploit the combined expertise of various design disciplines in order to devise reconstruction schemes that utilize monumental structures of significant emotional power--such as environmental sculptures, elegant memorial parks and cemeteries, and reconstructed boulevards and pedestrian promenades--to draw together key sectors of the city of Sarajevo.

An interdisciplinary approach will avail us of multiple perspectives, overlapping areas of creativity with which we can span gaps, both spiritual and physical, created by the longest urban siege in history. To balm the deep wounds inflicted in the name of "ethnic cleansing," our work for Sarajevo must be at once cohesive and regenerative, a celebration of multiculturalism's survival.

We may learn something about ourselves in helping to piece together the fragile multi-ethnic fabric of another society. Perhaps through the difficulties we encounter in finding solutions to the problems we pose for ourselves in this study, we will come to recognize in some small part the enormity of the damage that is wrought when civility's intricate thread is allowed to unravel, when neighbor allows himself to hate neighbor, when the flower of cultural expression is torn from its roots.

A community is a living thing, requiring nourishment and care to remain healthy. We will take an organic approach to Sarajevo's rebirth, one that acknowledges the blending of cultural influences that mark the great cosmopolitan crossroads of the world and the vital importance of cross-pollination of expression as humanity's creative wellspring.

A city is more than a collection of places, just as a community is more than a population. Only the common bond of humanity makes them a home.