Roads were unpaved despite them being in the city center and bomb craters were scattered across the streets and sidewalks. White tombstones decorated the hillsides of the once over-populated metropolis situated within the Dinaric Alps. These grave sites were prevalent all over town, housing the remains of the war casualties due to the ethnic cleansing that occurred. Newly built homes stood vacant failing to meet the new families that would have occupied these now destructed buildings, demolished by bombs. The rich architecture of the city was decimated, making it too like myself, a victim of war.
I came to this city hoping to reunite with the land that gave birth to me. I pictured it to be beautiful and pristine. I envisioned grandiose mountains with scattered rivers flowing amongst them. I imagined the combination of historic Ottoman and Austrian-Hungarian architecture complimenting each other within the same city of Sarajevo that I once called home.In school, we are educated on warfare; told the casualty numbers and the destruction left behind. These lessons become significant only when you witness them first-handedly.…show more content… This encounter with my mother land disturbed me greatly at age 11, a pivotal time in my life as I made the transition from elementary to middle school. Growing up in my new home in the United States, I was accustomed to unblemished infrastructure. My parents never spoke much of the torment caused by the war that would soon be my foundation of architectural inspiration. Revisiting our family home in Bosnia, I came to the realization that my beginning is just a facade wounded by bullet holes. At that time, I began to grasp the truths of the world and the truth regarding war was