City Market Has Been Open for 120 Years

The City Market building in Sarajevo was created out of the citizens' need to consolidate grocery trade, which had intensified due to the construction of the railway station, reports the B&H news agency Patria.

The project was designed in 1894 under the name "Markthalle fur Sarajevo" (from which it still derives the name Markale, as well as the market), and the building was completed a year later. Although the author of the project is unknown, the architectural design of the building's facade resembles other projects by Josip Vancaš. The execution projects bear the signature of August Butsch, but his work in Bosnia and Herzegovina does not indicate him as the designer.

The building was constructed in the Neo-Renaissance style and as such represents one of the more valuable achievements in that category. In the interior, the steel-wooden, lattice vault structure, as well as the basement cold storage, represent a contemporary approach to solving interior space. In the hall, there is a clock made in the Art Nouveau style, which still exists today.

At the beginning of Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia, numerous commercial buildings were erected, especially in Sarajevo in the zone west of Baščaršija. The center of urban functions shifted westward, and the appearance of the City Railway at the site of today's Alija Izetbegović Square gave that area the significance of a vibrant city center with numerous shops. Meat and vegetable vendors were particularly represented, and the need arose to build a City Market where all butchers and traders from Franje Josipa, Ferhadija, Ćemaluša, Kujundžiluk, and Predimaret streets would move.

The City Market was opened on November 1, 1895, and has served the same purpose ever since. Today, it is managed by the Cantonal Public Utility Company Markets-Pijace.