Architecture in the Space of Flows by Ballantyne Andrew;Smith Christopher;Campbell Penelope;

Author:Ballantyne, Andrew;Smith, Christopher;Campbell, Penelope;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

In 1996, after the checkpoint set up at the interface between the three ethnic groupings had evolved into an informal meeting place where cigarettes and cattle were traded and coffee was served at the roadside, the local commander decided to encourage initial encounters between members of the different ethnic communities by establishing a ‘free-trade zone', with the aim of consolidating peace. Sfor soldiers levelled several hectares of farmland, cleared the mines and supplied building materials. In next to no time, the largest informal market for goods in Southern Europe arose on the opposite side of the road to the checkpoint: with wooden huts, improvised stalls, smuggled goods and bootleg versions of brandname goods. Textiles, food, electronic products, building materials, cosmetics, car accessories and CDs could all be purchased at favourable prices there. The cheapest goods could be acquired directly from the lorries.

Decisive for the continued development of Arizona Market was the fact that, unlike most other informal markets, it arose on the open fields with the support of the armed forces. In the years that followed, the convergence of economic activities at the site and the self-organization of this grey trade area were extolled as a model for promoting the sustained development of communications and community structures between former wartime enemies. Supplementing the simple market facilities and mobile sales, the first houses soon arose, presaging the emergence of a self-organized urbanization process on the site. As time went by, ever more bars and motels operating in these huts and houses started to accommodate a form of trade that made it increasingly difficult to sell – at an international level – the success story of peace based on the market economy. For at Arizona Market, the real money was made through prostitution and trafficking in human beings: with women and girls who were being brought in from Eastern Europe. According to reports, they were rounded up on the streets and resold like cattle from one bar owner to the next. On 26 October 2000, the International Community (OHR, OSCE, UNMIBH and SFOR) announced a package of measures designed to purge Arizona Market of such illegal activities. These measures focused on regulating the issue of licences and tax revenues, and relocating the market by June 2001 to a new site that would offer all the necessary facilities and safety features (figure 6.2).2

The resulting transformation of the informal market into a shopping centre signalled a critical turning point, revealing the limits of translating between formal and informal systems. The ‘spontaneous' evolution of a public-urban space in the shape of an informal market surrounded by transporters and huts was replaced by enclosed fee-charging parking spaces. The coming together of diverse cultures was now regulated by fixed opening hours and private security guards. In summer 2006, there was little sign of the original Arizona Market with its thousands of wooden huts standing around a tarpaulin and metal-roofed bazaar. The present Arizona Market contains the market halls operated by ItalProject – an Italian-Bosnian-Serbian consortium, which won

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