CONSTERRA · Constructing Imperial Territories in Post-Ottoman South-Eastern and East-Central Europe (1685–1740)

CONSTERRA investigates appropriation, dissonant heritage, and the liminalities of identity by examining the afterlife of Ottoman architecture in former Venetian and Habsburg territories—modern-day Montenegro, Croatia, Hungary, and Serbia—between 1685 and 1740. In these regions, numerous refurbished Ottoman buildings display layered architectural forms and carry seemingly conflicting meanings. These complexities pose significant challenges for art-historical interpretation and heritage conservation, even as the structures are integrated into local cultural narratives.Developed at the Department of Art History in Zagreb, with a secondment at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, CONSTERRA will comparatively study how Habsburg and Venetian authorities physically and ideologically incorporated formerly Ottoman lands by analysing the reception, adaptation, and reuse of inherited buildings. Situating these buildings within the broader landscape of post-Ottoman architectural production, the project argues that they played a crucial role in the political, religious, and cultural consolidation of newly acquired territories—contributing to the formation of local and regional identities at a key moment in defining Catholic Europe.To address the near-total historiographical void on this subject, CONSTERRA poses several key questions: What encompassing transformations did Ottoman structures undergo? How were these buildings used to support the territorialisation of newly conquered regions? How were cohesive cultural narratives constructed from seemingly dissonant heritage? To explore these issues, the project employs a transnational comparative methodology at the intersection of art history, cultural geography, and critical heritage studies. Combining archival research, fieldwork, and digital tools, CONSTERRA aims to generate new knowledge on this chronological, geographical, and cultural crossroads, also informing debates around heritage management and conservation policy.