The invitation came from Senada Demirović of IDEAA urban house to express their concern against the unpleasant event that happened a couple of months ago at the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar designed by Bogdan Bogdanović. FAD 2022 has been organised to commemorate 100 years of Bogdan Bogdanović who were born on 20 August 1922 whose works were recognised as unique and marked the importance of symbolism. The lecture event on Sunday 11 September 2022 includes Darko's and David Sim's talks at Pavarotti Music Center.
For FAD 2022, Darko has written a short obituary in memory of Bogdan Bogdanović, published on IDEAA website.
Bogdan Bogdanović, architect
100th birthday
20.8.1992. – 20.2.2022.
I met Professor Bogdan Bogdanović in my first year of studying architecture, when the lecture cycle in Urbanology began with a question to which there may not be a real answer, but which should be asked constantly (and which I have been carrying around for decades and asking my students) - what makes a city - city?
I first met Bogdan back in 1974, but I already "knew" him. In my native Mostar, some ten years earlier, he built the Partisan Cemetery, the new pride of an already over-proud City, which certainly does not lack that wonderful quality of urbanity, inimitable, authentic urbanity.
Bogdan and Mostar loved each other.
Bogdan loved, felt and understood Mostar, and even more - he managed to reinterpret it, adding a white necropolis, a unique acropolis based on humanistic ideals, the sun celebrating life.
Mostar loved and accepted Bogdan. He was officially, but more importantly, also on the streets of the city, an honorary citizen of Mostar. He often said that it meant a lot to him, which was already clear to me when he first recognized my Mostar accent. Since then, I had a kind of special, undeserved status with Bogdan, which much later, sharing the anxieties of the early nineties, became stronger, until Vienna, and until the end.
Bogdan's sunny necropolis on the slope above Mostar is a mirror (of the essence) of my hometown, of humanism and conviviality that have the power to overcome both evil and death. Along with his many other works, the Mostar monument makes Bogdan's legacy immortal. Just as it turned out to be impossible to tear Mimar Hajrudin out of Mostar, it is also impossible to take Bogdan away from him. He, translating the social ideals and sunshine of the city that already has a bridge in its name, into the white stone of Mostar, created yet another one that has the power to overcome the blackness of darkness, shirts, T-shirts.
Bogdan, thank you and happy birthday!
Darko Radovic
Bogdan's student and friend
Bologna, 19.8.2022.
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