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Nikola Mandić Villa

- Petrakijina 7 -
The building, which was built in 1903, was originally built as a residential building, but later gained an educational function. It was built according to a project of the Czech architect and was built for the Croatian politician Nikola Mandić. He was born in the town of on January 20, 1869, in a Bosnian-Croatian family. He finished gymnasium in Sarajevo and went on to study law at the University of , where he received a doctorate in law in 1894. He returned to Sarajevo and worked as a judicial clerk before becoming an attorney. In the early 1900s, Mandić became one of the most influential Croat politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was elected to the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Land Parliament in 1910, and in 1911 he was its president. At the same time, he was also the deputy mayor of Sarajevo, and from 1914, by the King's decision. He is the founder and first president of the Croatian Central Bank and the branch of the Agricultural Bank in Sarajevo. Mandić was living as a retired government functionary at the time the Independent State of Croatia was declared.
Nikola Mandić
In 1943, he was appointed the Prime Minister of the Independent State of Croatia. He remained in that position until the end of the . In May 1945, he retreated to Austria, where he and a group of other high-ranking Independent State of Croatia officials were captured by the British army. They sentenced him to death in on June 6, which was carried out on June 7, 1945.

In 1945 the villa was nationalized and put into use as a consulate of the United States of America. Eventually, it became the seat of the municipal committee of the Union of Communists of Sarajevo. Since 1984 the villa has housed a museum dedicated to the Olympic Games held in the Bosnian capital. During the during the war in the first half of the 1990s, the building was damaged by grenade launchers and severely damaged. The renovation of the building was only completed in the second half of 2018 and is expected to be completed in January 2019.
Nikola Mandić on the left together with some Nazi officials
A is placed on the southeastern corner of the building, which is built in the styles of Neo-Classical and Neo-Renaissance, covered by a dome that's crowned with a . Underneath the dome, you can see a that's adorned with palm leaves. If you look a bit further down, you can see windows surrounded by that are crowned with a Corinthian , as well as and . Around the same height, you can admire two containing a richly decorated surrounded by a statue of a male and female figure and two . Both tympanums, as well as the surrounding cornice, are lavishly adorned with and an motif. The second floor frieze contains several frames and garland wreaths, and the Roman number MCMIII (1903). The underneath it is supported by massive columns crowned with Corinthian capitals, which can also be seen on the eastern side of the building. The loggia is secured with stone balustrades that contain seven . Either a pointed, a segmental, or a straight is placed above the second floor windows, some of which are supported by two , while the straight one is adorned with a cartouche surrounded by two angels. The that can be seen on the eastern side of the building contain a statue of a putto. The frieze on the first floor alternately contains a or a embellished with five . A keystone is placed above the first floor windows, which are adorned with a , while underneath these same windows, you can see a . The main entrance door, which is located on the southern side, is flanked by two lovely .
An old photo that shows the building