This paper offers preliminary insights into the phenomenality of Orientalizing styles of architecture in Bosnia‐Herzegovina in the period of Austro‐Hungarian rule. It examines in some detail three buildings in Banja Luka and Gradiška, with brief detours to Brčko, Dubica, and Šamac, focusing on the problem of decision‐making in the planning and design process. This discussion is aided by plan material discovered in the relevant archives as well as contemporary periodicals. The inquiry will conclude with ruminations on this phenomenon’s geography: Did Orientalizing architecture in Bosnia’s northern region, bordering Croatia‐Slavonia, carry different meanings than in Sarajevo and other inland metropolises?