Marvin
Systermans
Fotografie
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Informal
Immobilia

2019

Shortlist Vonovia Photography Award 2019
Around the center of Sarajevo, a city still scarred by war, red brick houses grow like weeds among the old residential neighborhoods in the mountains. Corruption in the complex state administrative apparatus makes it possible for investors to buy up old buildings without hindrance, tear them down and replace them with new buildings for which they acquire a building license only after the fact. Since there is no official plan for the development of these urban spaces, construction takes place as and where it suits, and an informal building culture develops. When money becomes scarce during construction, building ruins are left behind, often already inhabited, for an indefinite period of time. The series Informal Immobilia is a photographic examination of the aesthetics of Sarajevo's unregulated urban development, a typology of vernacular architecture and a photographic collection of forms.