Jonathan and I ventured into the lower levels of the building generally known as Mostar’s Sniper Tower, beginning with this substantial concrete stairwell. Its less dramatic local name is the Staklena Banka, or Glass Bank, and architectural records identify it as a project for Privredna Banka Sarajevo designed by Mostar architect Dragan Bijedić. Work began during the final years of Yugoslavia, but the building had not opened before war reached the city.
It wasn’t immediately obvious whether visitors were supposed to enter. It plainly wasn’t encouraged, but a section of the wooden boarding had been moved aside, leaving a reasonably straightforward way inside. Once inside, the stairs offered an obvious route upwards, although the absence of handrails quickly established the limits of my enthusiasm for urban exploration.
The interior has been stripped back to its concrete frame, with hanging cables, missing fittings and large openings where the exterior walls and windows once stood. The original building was intended to be one of Mostar’s most striking modern developments, with approximately ten storeys enclosed by blue glass held in an aluminium frame. That sleek late Yugoslav appearance has almost entirely vanished, leaving a structure which now looks as though exposed concrete had been the architect’s rather bleak intention all along.
I must admit that I hadn’t realised it was a bank while we were walking around it. I had assumed that it was a multi-storey car park or something similar. This probably says something about my architectural knowledge, but there we go.
Its height and position beside the Bulevar made the unfinished bank militarily valuable when Mostar was divided during the Croat–Bosniak fighting. The road became part of the front line between Bosnian Croat controlled western Mostar and Bosniak controlled territory to the east. Bosnian Croat forces occupied the tower and used its upper levels as sniper positions, gaining extensive views across the surrounding streets. The building was consequently shelled and its glass exterior destroyed, leaving the concrete skeleton that survives today.
Among the layers of graffiti is the message “I remember when I was not a window”, painted across what appears to be a blocked opening. This was my favourite piece of graffiti in the building as I like a little bit directness and dry humour. Nearly everything in the tower has changed purpose, with former offices becoming firing positions, ruins becoming canvases and blocked walls remembering when they provided views across the city. There are many reminders of war in Mostar, but this one is perhaps one of the most obvious.
Since the war, the lower floors have developed into an unofficial street art gallery, with large murals competing against tags, political messages and several decades of general decay. There is no formal exhibition or historical interpretation inside, which makes the experience rather different from visiting a preserved memorial. It remains an abandoned and potentially dangerous building rather than an attraction, something I continued reminding myself whenever Jonathan appeared more confident about the whole arrangement than I was.
These dark openings appear to be where the lifts were once located. The shafts are now unprotected drops, surrounded by damaged floors, and there was no compelling evidence that anyone had recently completed a reassuring health and safety inspection. I was pleased to have explored part of the tower, but felt no pressing need to reach the roof, even though it was accessible to those with substantially greater reserves of courage.
The larger mural provides a flash of colour within an otherwise grey and hollow interior. Much of the artwork has no direct connection to the war, but collectively it has given the building another stage in its history. The tower has shifted from an ambitious modern bank to a military position, then to a ruin and finally to an unofficial creative space. Jonathan and I spent longer looking at the artwork than I had expected, although this may partly have been an elaborate way of avoiding the increasingly unsafe stairs.
Seen from outside, the scale of the tower becomes much clearer and so does its former military value. Its long horizontal openings overlook central Mostar and the former front line, while almost nothing remains of the blue glass façade which gave the building its original name. Plans to rehabilitate the structure have circulated for years, but it continues to stand as one of the city’s most visible war ruins. Our cautious exploration of the lower floors was quite sufficient for me, leaving the higher levels to people with greater courage, poorer judgement or indeed both. By my standards, I had already been exceptionally brave once again.