He was also the consultant for the Mostar Project by the Agha Khan Cultural Trust and the Samarkhand Rehabilitation Project. M A Siraj caught up with him in Riyadh where Dr Pasic made a presentation at the International Congress of Handicrafts and Tourism recently. Excerpts from his interview:

Why did you take up the reconstruction of Old Bridge of Mostar?
For more than 400 years, the Old Bridge in Mostar reigned as Bosnia’s defining landmark. But during the 1992-1995 conflict, the Old Bridge became one of the war’s most famous casualties. On November 9, 1993, Croat artillery shells ruined the bridge. The symbol of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s cultural diversity lay in ruins.

Has it helped Bosnia’s reconstruction?
Certainly. You need a very strong symbol. My goal was to reconstruct the elegant, single-arch structure in its original design, using the same methods and materials employed by Turkish architects half a millennium ago.

With so much of bad blood in the heart of Europe, how was your appeal for rebuilding an Islamic landmark received?
In the beginning no one took my appeal seriously. But my presentations started attracting media attention. By July 1998, nearly three years after the war’s end, UNESCO and the World Bank pledged their support for the reconstruction project and launched a joint appeal for additional funding.

Though Mostar is far from a united city, the rebuilding and reopening of the 16th century bridge was heralded as a major step toward reconciliation in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina. In total, the World Bank, the European Bank and five nations – Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Turkey, Italy, and the Netherlands – committed funds to the rebuilding. Additional assistance came from international organisations such as the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Geneva and the World Monuments Fund in New York; individual donors; and the many universities and professional schools around the world.