Three Mosques by Architect Ahmet Hadrovic

The author, as a young architect, had his first encounter with the design task of a mosque in 1986, when he designed the New Mosque in Solun on Krivaja. Winning the first prize at the General Yugoslav architectural competition for the project of the Islamic Center in Rijeka, Republic of Croatia (1991), for the Author, meant entering the 'big door' into the world of architecture, in the area of then Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as in the area of former Yugoslavia. In addition to the projects of 'large urban mosques' (Adil Begova and Kuwait Mosques in Sarajevo, the Islamic Center in Novi Travnik, the City Mosque in Breza), the author edited and realized the designs of 'small mahal's mosques' (the Mosque in Japalaci near Tarcin, the Mosque in Binjezevo near Sarajevo, the Mosque in the Rakitnica village on the Bjelasnica mountain Plateau), which he presents in this work, and several mosque designs that were not realized. In everything, these mosques reflect the contemporary moment of life in Bosnia and Herzegovina - the contents of the mosque and the spatial solution. A mosque is not only a 'place of worship' but a place of bathing and a place of complex social life. According to its construction, materialization, overall design and the design of individual traditional elements of the mosque (dome, minaret, mihrab, mimber...) these mosques represent an apparent expression of the synergy of the natural and social environment and the man for whom it was created. Mosques acquired the character of true 'genius loci' of a more or less wide area.