Administrative Center of Petnjica

Petnjica is a small settlement that has certain urban characteristics. As the most important cultural and historical monument within the urban fabric, there is a three-story mosque. The building is located at the top of the settlement, seen from most positions, which gives it a significant symbolic character. Its scale is carefully composed with the tendency to fit into the existing matrix. The urban setting in the shape of the letter “L” formed a square in front of the building, which enabled the gathering of citizens and various events that correspond to the multi-purpose wedding hall on the ground floor. Finding inspiration in the remains of the Bihor fortification, the building is located on a stone wall made of local material. The architectural design reflects the transposition of inherited local architecture, created by the symbiosis of the Dinaric and Oriental houses. It is characterized by stone, white mortar and wooden cladding with doxats(traditional porches) on the facade, which give a striking shape, otherwise present in many buildings in Polimlje (valley of Lim river). The obliquely placed wooden cladding of part of the facade was “taken” from the wooden minaret of the mosque. The massive white wall has an irregular arrangement of deep windows, which is reminiscent of the defensive loopholes that were on the tower of the medieval fortress of the city of Bihor. In some places on the façade of the building, protruding cantilever outlets – doxats – have been designed. In their original form, they are present on local houses, and they have been applied to the new building in a stylized form. The position of the building above the settlement, the formation of a square in front of the building, the studious arrangement of windows on the building enabled a visual dialogue between the interior of the building and the settlement, which achieves multiple relations of the new building with the existing ambience. For that purpose, the transposed motif of the gate, present in the courtyards of traditional houses, was used.