SELMAN SELMANAGIĆ:

Today, the name of Selman Selmanagić (Srebrenica, 1905 – Berlin, 1986), an architect, urban planner, designer and university professor is inevitable part of the European history of modern architecture, design and protection of building heritage. Selman Selmanagić is the only architect from the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia who completed entire studies and took a bachelor's degree in architecture at the most significant school of European art avant-garde – the Bauhaus school, and therefore he is the only name from Bosnia and Herzegovina who is directly associated with the greatest names of European and world art and architecture.

Selman Selmanagić was born in Srebrenica in 1905. His father Alija completed the studies of law in Istanbul in 1902, and his mother Hajrija (Hayriya) Omer Vehbi drew her origin from a respectable Turkish family. Selman was thus born into a traditional, very devout, respectable and highly educated family, open toward positive values of acquiring knowledge and new insights. He spent his childhood at the family estate in Budak, near Srebrenica, in a family with eleven children for whom his father Alija strove to ensure higher education. By mere chance and guided by his courage and pluck, and after he completed only the vocational school and cabinet-making craft in Sarajevo, Selmanagić enrolled at Bauhaus school in the German city of Dessau in 1929, where he graduated in 1932. His professors included Mies van der Rohe, Josef Albers, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer, who - at the time - were the leading names of European art scene and avant-garde research in the field of fine arts, architecture and design.

Characteristics such as openness to research and experiment, team work, social responsibility of art and architecture, social sensitivity, interaction of different fields and disciplines, which made up the spirit of the Bauhaus school permanently defined Selmanagić's life and professional trajectory, marked by many journeys and jobs in the countries of Mediterranean and the Middle East between the two wars. His participation in the work of illegal Communist cells in Berlin, where he returned in the eve of the Second World War, confirmed his brave and determined character and anti-Fascism as his permanent life orientation.

Selman Selmanagić was one of the leading architects in the renewal of post-war Berlin, a member of the famous collective plan led by Hans Scharoun from 1945 to 1950. It was thanks to the cordial commitment of Selman Selmanagić, who highlighted the architectural value and the cultural significance of buildings such as Berlin Cathedral, Neue Wache and Humboldt University, that central buildings of Berlin public, cultural and educational life were renewed and reconstructed, and that the name of Selman Selmanagić was permanently inscribed into the cultural history of the city. His most significant project of this period was the well-known Berlin Stadium of World Youth (Stadion Walter Ulbricht).

In 1950 he was appointed professor of Berlin High School of Arts – Kunsthochschule Weissensee – which had been adapted according to his design and where he was the head of the Department of Architecture for twenty years. His distinctive teaching methodology and teaching contents which resisted the dominant social realism style which in turn marked arts of the German Democratic Republic after the Second World War permanently influenced many generations of students, who enrolled in this school solely because of his authority and knowledge.

For over thirty years Selmanagić was also one of the most significant furniture designers in East Germany, and his designs have been included into the classics of German design, which was proven by the prize awarded to him in 1985.

Many elements from Selmanagić's dynamic life make up a great basis for a film scenario – from his origin and possible ties with the sultan court through his mother's family, the childhood spent at a large family estate in Srebrenica, which has been known as a site rich  with mineral deposits since ancient times, and in the recent history as the site of horrible genocide over Bosniaks (1995), his education at Bauhaus, experience with Arabic and Jewish communities in Palestine during British mandate, work in the film studios of UFA and illegal resistance cells in Berlin during the war, all the way to his conflict with German Building Academy and implacable resistance to the ideologization of art. All these elements draw outlines of a brave, proud and distinct character who encouraged his students to be courageous and responsible members of the society because it is only then, as he believed, that architecture fulfills its mission.

Srebrenica always had a special place in his life, and he insisted upon being buried there, as “the most miraculous place in the world” as he often told his students, in 1986. By an incredible twist of fate, the old family house of the Selmanagićs in Budak, near Srebrenica, where Selman spent the most wonderful days of his childhood, is now situated in the immediate vicinity of Potočari Memorial, since the family ceded part of their estate for building the shahid cemetery. Symbolically, it closed the circle of his life in Srebrenica, and the name of Selman Selmanagić opens the possibility of a new perception of Srebrenica, which is no longer only the image of war and suffering but also an image of a young, brave and courageous man who arrived in Berlin in the early 20th century, with no knowledge of German and with no financial support, and became part of the European history of arts.

The first comprehensive monograph about Selman Selmanagić was published in Bosnian in 2014; it was followed by an expended and revised edition in German, which was presented at the Bauhaus Archives in Berlin in 2018 as the central event of the project “2018 – European Cultural Heritage Year (ECHY)ˮ. It has underscored the significance of Selman Selmanagić in the cultural history of the City of Berlin and modern Germany.

References:

• Abadžić Hodžić, Aida (2014), Selman Selmanagić i Bauhaus, Sarajevo: Bošnjački institut – Fondacija Adila Zulfikarpašića.

• Abadžić Hodžić, Aida (2018), Selman Selmanagić und das Bauhaus, Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag.