Diving off of the Old Bridge used to be a ritual where young men dove off the bridge to prove their manliness and impress young women. Boys learned step by step how to dive and ultimately become skilled enough to jump off the Old Bridge. A diving contest is still held every year, where the most famous international high board divers take the plunge. This urban activity has remained a shared tradition and is practiced by people from all religious backgrounds. This public activity may be a perfect way to connect people once again.

In order to form a new operational architectural language in the ‘neutral’ zone, I propose a building that includes a diving school where citizens can learn, step by step, to dive from great heights with the plunge from the new Old Bridge as the final step. By designing such a place, an urban activity is made available to all the inhabitants of the city, regardless of their nationality, religion, gender, age, or sexual orientation. It is not just diving off the Old Bridge, but also diving itself that is an age-old tradition. Diving is something atavistic. It is pre-religious. Historians question whether jumpers found on pre-Christian paintings could actually swim. It may be that diving even predates swimming.

In order to form a new operational architectural language in the ‘Spanish square’ zone, I propose a building that includes a diving school where every Mostarac and Mostarka can learn, step by step, to dive from great heights with the plunge from the new Old Bridge as the final step. By designing such a place, an urban activity is made available to all the inhabitants of the city, regardless of their nationality, religion, gender, age, or sexual orientation.

It is not just diving off the Old Bridge, but also diving itself that is an age-old tradition. Diving is something atavistic. It is pre-religious. Historians question whether jumpers found on pre-Christian paintings could actually swim. It may be that diving even predates swimming.

Shaping the public spaces to accommodate new urban and inclusive activities is essential. Especially in the present circumstances shaped by the destruction of the last war, room must be made for public activities. By creating a number of anchor points in public spaces, the area could develop itself further from there. On the elevated square, with the Gymnasium, the diving place, and a café as anchor points, a new Korzo could arise, with the history of Mostar in all its diversity as its background. The diving school will be located at the square, right at the spot where the old Hit department store used to be, which is building will face the Gymnasium. This school, which teaches (although separate from each other) both Croatian, Muslim, and international students, is directly opposite the building. Because all groups and nationalities already use this building, and since this entire area already possesses a public history, it is a very appropriate location to construct a building where people can learn to dive from great heights.

In Mostar, diving off the Old Bridge is a tradition that has its origin in the very structure of the city. Without the existence of the Old Bridge, the tradition would never have been there. Even after the war when the Old Bridge was demolished and before there was a stand-in bridge, there was a springboard from which people could dive into the river. The jump is a form of survival for the inhabitants of Mostar, it is something they can hold on to, because it forms the foundation of being a Mostarac or Mostarka, not just a member of some district. The sensation of weightlessness is the feeling of ‘eternity’, something without limits, in nite, oceanic. Furthermore, swimming is an important and meaningful part of diving. Swimming has to be taught or else one is bound to drown. Everything one undertakes to overcome this condition could be explained as the continuous battle against one’s natural instinct: to sink.*

Swimming teaches us to keep our heads above water. Jumping off the bridge is an individual activity, but one that makes connections between men, as equals, through the courage to do so. The three- second jump towards the water provides a feeling of weightlessness and freedom where one becomes detached from everything around empowerment to conquer the city and the architecture for a moment and dive into the future with a new version of the old one in mind.