One of the main news items in the Bosnian blogosphere this week has been the addition of the ViÅ¡egrad stone bridge to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The bridge, named after Mehmed PaÅ¡a Sokolović, one of the most famous Grand Viziers of the Ottoman Empire, born in ViÅ¡egrad in 1505, connects the two banks of the Drina River, which forms most of the border between Bosnia and Serbia. Bosnian writer Ivo Andrić, who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1961, wrote a book called The Bridge over the Drina River, which described the building of the bridge and life in Bosnia under the Ottoman Empire.
Day and Night, who posted a couple photos of the bridge, describes it as a masterpiece:
Characteristic of the apogee of Ottoman monumental architecture and civil engineering, the bridge has 11 masonry arches with spans of 11m to 15m, and an access ramp at right angles with four arches on the left bank of the river. The 179.5 m long bridge is a representative masterpiece of Sinan, one of the greatest architects and engineers of the classical Ottoman period and a contemporary of the Italian Renaissance, with which his work may be compared. The unique elegance of proportion and monumental nobility of the whole site bear witness to the greatness of this style of architecture.
continue reading "Bosnia & Herzegovina: New UNESCO Heritage Site; New Cross Memorial"