Army Hall (Sarajevo)


The Army Hall is a building in Sarajevo that was built in 1881. It was originally a casino for officers, and during the existence of Yugoslavia it was named Dom JNA. Today it is a national monument consisting of the Officer Casino building and four paintings by Ismet Mujezinović.
The building was built on area that had previously been a graveyard. The location had been bought from the Austro-Hungarian Consulate General in 1870. The land was originally intended for building a Catholic church, but by an order of liege man Duke Württemberg, the building of the Officer Casino started in 1880. The following year the casino was built and ceremonially opened. In the following years, the casino was a center of social life until a social club opened. At the Officer Casino there were exhibitions, public lectures, and the first concert of military music was held in 1881.
The press cites this as the first-class cultural event in Sarajevo, attended by Baron Dahlen and Stransky and other top officials by their Excellencies, and then provides information about performed works of Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Delibes and Halévy. The second concert with solo performance on piano and violin was held soon after. Philharmonic and other concerts were held regularly as a tradition to a newer time in the same building and the same hall.
The military chapel Franz Lehar had conducted with 50th Infantry Regiment Orchestra, and he was probably a father of famous composer Franz Lehár who lived in Sarajevo for a while.
The Officer Casino at was initially a single store with a central cube and lateral wings. The current version of the building dates to 1912, when the building was extended and the second floor upgraded into a large hall. The architectural changes were made according to architect Karel Pařík's project. The building is strictly symmetrical with an accentuated north facade whose central part is decorated and lateral parts slightly less so. The central portion of the building has dimensions 16.5 x 31 meters while the lateral wings have dimensions 10.5 x 27 meters.
At the central part on the floor there is the main content of building, a concert hall, which is still the best acoustic hall in Sarajevo. Dimensions of this hall are 20 x 15 meters. Four of painter Ismet Mujezinović's canvases are exhibited in the concert hall of the building.
The paintings in the building are about the Yugoslavian National Liberation Fight during the Second World War. They are titled Uprising 1941, Crossing the Neretva river, In the honor of the Sutjeska fighters, and Liberation of Jajce 1943.

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