Villa Mandić is an eclectic-style villa located in the Petrakijina Street in

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

's capital

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ), ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'' is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 2 ...

. Together with the nearby villas (villa Reiter, villa Rädisch, villa Miklau) it was declared National Monument in 2009.

History

The villa was completed in 1903 for the then politician and lawyer

Nikola Mandić Nikola Mandić (; 20 January 1869 – 7 June 1945) was a Croatian politician and one of the leading political figures in Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austrian-Hungarian rule. He also served as a Prime Minister of the Independent State of Croati ...

. It was designed by Czech architect

Karel Pařík Karel Pařík (4 July 1857 – 16 June 1942) was a Czech-born architect in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Pařík spent most of his life in Sarajevo where he designed over seventy major buildings, which are today classified among the most beauti ...

, who at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries devoted himself to extensive modernization and Europeanization of the then still oriental-looking town of Sarajevo. The magnificent multi-storey villa has a number of historical elements; striking façade with columns and tympanum, monumental entrance, windows with shambles etc. In 1945 the villa was nationalized and put into use as a consulate of the

United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...

. Eventually it became seat of the municipal committee of the Union of Communists of Sarajevo. Since 1984 the villa has housed a museum dedicated to the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

held in the Bosnian capital. The exhibition was carried out in a similar way to the

Olympic Museum The Olympic Museum () in Lausanne, Switzerland houses permanent and temporary exhibits relating to sport and the Olympic movement. With more than 10,000 artifacts, the museum is the largest archive of Olympic Games memorabilia in the world and on ...

in Lausanne, Switzerland. Between 1984 and 1992 there were 300 different exhibitions devoted to sport. During the siege of the city during the war in the first half of the 1990s, the building was damaged by grenade launchers and severely damaged.Článek na portálu N1.com
/ref> The villa was one of the first buildings to be bombarded; as a result, in April 1992 the Museum employees moved a large part of the exhibits into the cellars of the Zetra sports hall. The Olympic Museum has been located in this hall since 2004. After the war, the villa was one of the few historic buildings that had not undergone extensive reconstruction, despite the fact that in 1998 a rehabilitation project was implemented, which was officially launched in 2000. It is currently a cultural monument, along with several surrounding villas (''vila Heinricha Raithera, vila Hermine Radisch & vila Forstratha Miklaua''). The renovation of the building was only completed in the second half of 2018 and is expected to be completed in January 2019.Článek na portálu N1.com
/ref> The city of Sarajevo donated 100,000 convertible marks to the museum's restoration.Článek na portálu bnn.ba
/ref>

History

Notes

External links

See also