Before the fire in 1992 the National and University Library held an estimated 1.5 million volumes, among them 155,000 rare books, unique archival collections, 478 manuscripts, the national collection of record of all the books, newspapers and magazines published in Bosnia since the 19th century, books published abroad about Bosnia's history and culture, as well as the central research collections of the University of Sarajevo.
The City Hall by its spatial-plastic values and architectural framework, as well as the urban importance, captures a high position on the scale of the most significant buildings of Sarajevo and it became its spatial peculiarity.
All over the city sheets of burned paper, fragile pages of gray ashes, floated down like a dirty black snow. Catching a page you could feel its heat, and for a moment read a fragment of text in a strange kind of black and gray negative, until, as the heat dissipated, the page melted to dust in your hand. (Dr. Kemal Bakarsic, librarian of Bosnia's National Museum, describing the burning of the National and University Library on 25-27 August 1992).
Vjećnica (National Library, Old Town Hall)
Sept. 21, 2011, 12:56 p.m.
The National Library was housed in the old Town Hall known as Vijećnica. It was built at the end of the last century at the end of Baščaršija, on the interesting plot in the triangle form. It was designed by Alexander Wittek in 1892, and he started the construction as well. The design was subsequently changed and supplemented by Ćiril Iveković in the new Moorish style leaning especially to the architecture of Mameluk in Cairo. It officially became the town hall in 1895. As the National Library it was exposed to large shelling and was heavily damaged in the 1992-95 aggression.