Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar

The original bridge was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557 to replace an older wooden deferment bridge of dubious stability. Construction began in 1557 and took nine years: according to the inscription the bridge was completed in 974 AH, corresponding to the period in the middle of 19 July 1566  and 7 July 1567. Tour directors used in front happening once the money for entry that the bridge was held together once metal pins and mortar made from the protein of egg whites, Little is known of the building of the bridge, and all that has been preserved in writing are memories and legends and the pronounce of the builder, Mimar Hayruddin (student of Mimar Sinan, the Ottoman architect). Charged deadened headache of death to construct a bridge of such unprecedented dimensions, the architect reportedly prepared for his own funeral in parable to the day the scaffolding was finally removed from the completed structure.

Upon its pretend it was the widest man-made arch in the world. Certain associated obscure issues remain a secrecy: how the scaffolding was erected, how the stone was transported from one bank to the adding together, how the scaffolding remained sound during the long building period. As a consequences, this bridge can be classed together amid the greatest architectural works of its become antiquated.

According to the 17th century Turkish speculator Evliya elebi, the declare Mostar itself means "bridge-keeper." As Mostar's economic and administrative importance grew gone the growing presence of Ottoman deem, the precarious wooden interruption bridge more than the Neretva gorge required replacement. The earliest bridge upon the river "...was made of wood and hung upon chains," wrote the Ottoman geographer Katip elebi, and it "...swayed thus much that people crossing it did hence in mortal agitation". In 1566, Mimar Hayruddin, a student of the to your liking architect Sinan, meant Stari Most during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. The bridge was said to have cost 300,000 Drams (silver coins) to construct. The two-year construction project was supervised by Karagoz Mehmet Bey, Sultan Suleyman's son-in-acquit yourself and the patron of Mostar's most important mosque obscure, called the Hadzi Mehmed Karadzozbeg Mosque.

The bridge, 28 meters long and 20 meters high (90' by 64'), speedily became a incredulity in its own epoch. The adroitly-known entrepreneur Evliya elebi wrote in the 17th century that: the bridge is serve on a rainbow arch soaring happening to the skies, extending from one cliff to the tallying. ...I, a needy and assault slave of Allah, have passed through 16 countries, but I have never seen such a high bridge. It is thrown from stone to rock as tall as the mood.

The Old Bridge stood for 427 years, until it was destroyed upon 9 November 1993 during the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After its destruction a temporary cable bridge was erected in its area.

Newspapers based in Sarajevo reported that far away afield along than 60 bombs hit the bridge forward it collapsed. After the destruction of the Stari Most, a spokesman for the Croats admitted that they carefully destroyed it, claiming that it was of strategic importance Academics have argued that the bridge held tiny strategic value and that its shelling was an example of deliberate cultural property destruction. Andras Riedlmayer terms the destruction an war of "killing memory", in which evidence of a shared cultural lineage and peaceful co-existence were as soon as intent destroyed.

Both sides of the city remained connected until the bridges reconstruction thanks to the Spanish military engineers assigned to United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) mission.

After the decline of the stroke, plans were raised to reconstruct the bridge. The World Bank, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the World Monuments Fund formed a coalition to oversee the reconstruction of the Stari Most and the historic city center of Mostar. Additional funding was provided by Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Croatia and the Council of Europe Development Bank, as nimbly as the Bosnian handing out. In October 1998, UNESCO traditional an international committee of experts to oversee the design and reconstruction perform. It was approved to construct a bridge as same as realizable to the native, using the related technology and materials.The bridge was approximately-built when local materials by Er-Bu Construction Corp a Turkish company, using Ottoman construction techniques. Tenelia stone from local quarries was used and Hungarian army divers recovered stones from the native bridge from the river knocked out. Reconstruction commenced on 7 June 2001. The reconstructed bridge was inaugurated as regards 23 July 2004.