[spectre] (fwd) CFP: Konak and Villa (Sarajevo, 15-17 Sep 22)

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Ajla Bajramovic
Date: Apr 27, 2022
Subject: CFP: Konak and Villa (Sarajevo, 15-17 Sep 22)

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sep 15–17, 2022
Deadline: May 29, 2022

Konak and Villa: Convergences and transmutations of the representative 
residence in 19th century Southeast Europe

The villa as we know it was born in an age of pandemics and epidemics. 
The patricians’ withdrawal from the congested cities of Tuscany, the 
Veneto, and Rome to their environs helped establish the design of 
representative country houses as a reputable artistic task. Later, 
improved communications made possible the villa’s reinvention as a place 
of permanent residence on the fringes of Europe’s industrializing 
cities. Its erstwhile seclusion was exchanged for a clustering in 
emerging neighborhoods of the middle and upper classes. Such zonings had 
become part and parcel of 19th -century urbanization. In the continent’s 
southeast, the modern-age villa of Western provenance encountered and 
consecutively transmuted (but not necessarily supplanted) traditional 
forms of elite habitation. Of the many terms associated with such, konak 
was by far the most commonly used. Beyond its broader meaning, this term 
also designated more specifically the residence of the provincial 
administrator (and, eventually, of provincial administration). In their 
most typical variants, villa and konak shared many features – notably 
their detached standing, the elevated socio-economic status of their 
owners, and the refined interiors and gardens in which this status was 
echoed. The two types also markedly differed in other aspects – notably 
the typical (modern) villa’s conspicuous visibility from the public 
street, contrasting with the konak’s traditional concealment behind walls.

Our conference seeks to bring together current research on 
representative residences in Southeast Europe. It focuses on works of 
the 19th century and aims to document various stages and phenomena, 
while recognizing the singularity of each object. We are particularly 
interested in discussing how the architecture of elite habitations 
corresponded to functions (such as co-use as workplace) and desired 
qualities (such as the ability to survey the surroundings, with elements 
like verandas and towers as interfaces); how ambitions of distinction 
were communicated (e.g. through symmetry or other markers of 
monumentality); and how the residence communicated with the city’s core 
area and outskirts as well as with their surrounding public space. We 
also invite the addressing of issues of preservation and rehabilitation 
for public uses, as well as questions of interior design and landscaping.

Please submit proposals for contributions (including information about 
institutional affiliation) by May 29, 2022, to 
ajla.bajramovic at univie.ac.at. Invited speakers’ costs for travel and 
accommodation will be covered by the organizers. On account of 
constraints sustained by the ongoing pandemic, the number of listeners 
will be limited and contingent on registration.

The conference is organized by European Research Council project no. 
758099 at the University of Vienna in cooperation with the Cantonal 
Institution for the Protection of Cultural, Historical and Nature 
Heritage (Sarajevo)

Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Konak and Villa (Sarajevo, 15-17 Sep 22). In: ArtHist.net, Apr 27, 
2022. <https://arthist.net/archive/36531>.