Papers by joli mitrojorgji
Haven’t we the obligation to preserve and pass on the cultural memory which is conveying intangib... more Haven’t we the obligation to preserve and pass on the cultural memory which is conveying intangible sense and values that are so indispensable to every living society? Is not there any alternative for conserving our architectural heritage expressing shared universal values? On such point of view, the earthen architecture should not be essential to this protection and passing on of our inherited cultural, bio and techno-diversity? So, it should be upon the indisociable triptych “conservation-sustainable development-modernity” that could raise a “vision” for a recreated future of the earthen architecture useful for the coming out of more viable societies generating new specific as diverse equilibriums between “men”, their environment and their culture. We have to take better knowledge and more understanding of this “building intelligence” and go on updating, enriching our cultural legacy by a more appropriate use of our potentials. But, in the same time, we have to be careful to not b...
Revista "Monumentet", 2017
If you observe the map of a city, you automatically
focus on three elements: the core, the part w... more If you observe the map of a city, you automatically
focus on three elements: the core, the part where we seek
the very start and where the urban elements are full of
history; residential blocks and the street grid structure
that goes within; the limits of the city, the obstacles that
have influenced on the actual urban development and the
tendencies for the future come at last.
The plan of the city is very expressive. This document
and the personal experience of the urban environment tells
us about how have been created the living environment and
what are his values and his aesthetically accomplishments.
The most sustainable city-forming urban elements are:
the core or the bazaar, mostly representing the start of the
settlement; the residential block as a testimony of the way of
life within the architectural unit, but most of all representing
the relations between spatial and universal, individual and
collective, public and private; the public space as the most
important part of the urban space, including the private one.
In this study, we will focus on the core of the cities,
even though few examples have reached our days, but in
some cases they have shaped the morphological and spatial
structure of the city centers of today. Today we face the loss
of the old bazaars of Berat, Shkodra, Elbasan, Kavaja, Tirana
and partially the old bazaar of Korça. Meanwhile we can
still appreciate the old bazaar of Gjirokastra, Korça, Çarshia
of Peja and Gjakova in Kosovo.
We are aware that the logic of contemporary development
cannot accept the imitation of this architecture but it is not
permitted to alter the symbolic of this architecture, to destroy
history or even peoples’ heritage. These places are identified
as “locus”, as pathological elements in the urban body.
A “place”, a “locus” identified as such from the past
and present, must be preserved as an “idea”, today and
the days to come, independently from the architecture that
characterizes it, because it is or seeks to be a city-forming
idea, it is a cultural and social culture. It is a way of life and
behavior. It is memory and cradle to its identity.
Focusing the study on the old Albanian bazaars, we
aim to ease the reading and point to the values of an urban
phenomenon, identity the historical and spatial values of this
urban object, helping in the design of intervention programs,
to preserve the physical and spiritual homogeneity of urban
life.
For this purpose the maps of 1930-1950 of cities like
Berat, Gjirokastra, Korça, Elbasan, Kavaja, Tirana, Shkodra
and Peja and Gjakova in Kosovo have been redrawn. It will
reside in the urban morphology and the spatial structure in
the economic-social centres of these cities.
These centres in the Albanian cities are organized in
two ways: as separated neighborhoods in the centre or in the
periphery like Berat, Korça, Tirana, Shkodra e Elbasani, or
as e shopping street as a part of the street grid of the city like
Kavaja, Gjirokastra, Vlora and Gjakova.
Another interesting element is the position of the object of cult and of the administrative buildings in the bazaars
of the traditional cities. The towers of clock are elements
of reference in the urban landscape. We have cases where
the cult objects surround the bazaar from all sides like in
Tirana, when they surround the bazaar from only one side
like in Berat, Shkodra and Korça, create a line through the
bazaar like in Elbasan, and also they may have important
places within the bazaar like in Kavaja, Peja, Gjakova,
Vlora or Gjirokastra.
It is worth mentioning the urban nodes within and in
the perimeter of the bazaar that cannot be treated only as
crossroads but also as entrance or exit, as well as connection
points of the urban structure of the bazaars with the rest of
the city. These nodes may be points with a high level treading
activity. Sometimes, they may create tendencies to form
public spaces, without reaching entirely its characteristics
because of the non-inviting functions, their dimensions or
the high intensity of movement in them.
As a conclusion, the bazaars of the traditional Albanian
cities are the most active core of the city. They are multi functional
spaces, including cult objects and where the street
nodes are very live and active elements. Different analysis
can be done about the bazaars. Let’s hope that this study
have reached its purpose to know and appreciate them,
while facing the fact city life as it was, with all the identity,
traditional knowledge and spatial values is being lost.
Revista "Monumentet", 2015
Many traditional settlements in our country have a life
expectancy over 2500 years old, but how i... more Many traditional settlements in our country have a life
expectancy over 2500 years old, but how is it possible to
resist through time, for so long. Which are the factors that
have made possible the continuity of social and cultural life
of the traditional Albanian cities? The Albanian society has
been developed and transformed in accordance to the state
organizations of the civilizations that have left their traces
all over our territory but, another form of legislation, that of
the canon law, has coexisted with the central power.
As for the building environment, we will show a historic
document, the byzantine building code, the treatise of Ascalon
from Palestine, written between 531-533 A.D., that widened its
influence in the Balkan countries; on the other hand, we will
numerate the building codes incorporated in the Canon Law
that have contributed in the creation of the build environment
of the traditional settlements, such as Gjirokastra.
First of all, the main issues discussed in the Treatise of
Ascalon can be summarized as below: the change in the build
environment is a natural process, but in the face of ongoing
change, it is necessary to maintain an equitable equilibrium
in the built environment; change, particularly that occurring
among proximate neighbors, creates potential for damages
to existing dwelling and other uses; in principle, property
owners have the freedom to do what they are pleased on
their own property, but constrained by preexisting conditions
of neighboring properties; the compact built environment
of ancient towns necessitates the implementation of
interdependence rights among citizens, principally among
proximate neighbors; the public realm must not be subjected
to damages that result from activities or waste originating
in the private realm; the panorama is important to preserve
because they give pleasure to the community and they carry
cultural values of a traditional settlement; public realm is
protected from all damages.
Second of all, Albanian popular legal corpus treats
issues such as: the change in the built environment is
accepted as obligatory condition for the development and
improvement of social and community life; intervention
in the built environment must avoid damages in the public
realm; the freedom to act within the boundaries as long as
this activity prevents damages to others; the public realm
must not be damaged and cooperation is stimulated for
the common good.
The analysis of the city-formation process of Gjirokastra
will be based on the direct relations with the Canon of
Labëria, as central city of the region. The study of the city
development has to be viewed as a process and as a product.
The process implies the entirety of actions for the decisionmaking,
and on the other side, the product implies the results
in the urban structure of a settlement and the values of the
historical landscape.
Based on Gjirokastra key-study, the amazing result
of this world heritage property, we think that we should
sustain our building process in some local codes because:
the legislation is not always applicable for the good of
local identity of the traditional settlements, we shall
preserve the inherited cultural identity, we shall take
in consideration the man and his psychology deeply
embodied in the cultural and historical environment, and
we shall improve life quality, the sense of community and
the interdependence of man with the public space. Many
arguments can be listed, but the purpose is to create a
favorable law corpus from the top and local codes from
below to help the revitalization, transformation and
development process. The study of the canon and their
relations with the urban processes helps in the right
formulation of building legislation, but also of the city codes or specific regulation of every living settlement.
Revista "Monumentet", 2014
The main purpose of this article is to experiment a reading
of the settlement’s form considering ... more The main purpose of this article is to experiment a reading
of the settlement’s form considering the city as an urban object
and most of all as a cultural object, not only a creation of the
human society but also aesthetic, carrier of universal values, that
are inherited and transmitted from generation to generation.
More than any other architectonic isolated object,
the structure of the urban settlements has resisted time, a
structure that has accepted change, transformation and
development from time to time.
When we realize studies in the morphological field, this
does not mean that today we should copy from tradition
and the forms of the past, but, it means we should find the
ways that these studies serve to distinguish principles and
experiences through the understanding of the concepts,
models and theories that analyze the human environment.
This is possible by studying the environment from two
perspectives: in one hand there is the city as a long creative
process and from the other hand the study of the city as a
product of this disciplined process.
Staying within the idea of this study, we should point out
the fact that we are going to concentrate in the analysis of the
values of the urban situation of the city of Elbasan before 1960,
a time that sets a clear limit between the city from the past and
the first interventions in his urban structure from urban planners
that tried to respond to the necessities of the time.
What has been distinguished in this short analysis?
First of all, we distinguish the sustainable strategic,
geo-morphological and economic principles that have
determined the position of the city of Elbasan.
Another distinctive element is the stability of the urban
structure of the city, visible and present nowadays in his
plan. This structure was consolidated in long periods of time
accepting as non-conditional phenomena:
- Evolution in time and the territorial expansion through
an organic logic, but also, by overcoming the geographic
and natural barriers.
- The urban structure, protecting her identity, accepts
change, adaptation and transformation as indispensable
conceptual elements of the urban form in her efforts to
respond to the phenomena of the social and urban life of the
city.
• In Elbasan, in the general form of the urban structure
we distinguish:
- The extension of the settlement’s buildings in a very
rational way under the logic of creation in time, dense and
crystallized entirely in the Castle and the Bazaar quarter,
less dense and still carrying the inner energy of the forming
process in the quarters around her.
- The main roads are those in the most important
directions of the city, from east, west and south.
- The grid of the urban structure seems to adapt to the
geometry of the castle quarter, but it does not, nor inside the
castle where the grid is distorted. It would be necessary to
accentuate the organic nature, not orthogonal of the urban
grid that stands for casual suppleness, visual short and fluid
perspectives, not geometrical and spontaneous urban spaces
developed in a flat ground.
-The city urban grid is distinguished for the creation of the
street rings giving more than an option to approach the house.
ELBASAN, THE LOST IDENTITY OF A CITY
Maksim MITROJORGJI
Joli MITROJORGJI
76 Maksim MITROJORGJI - Joli MITROJORGJI
-The city quarters are formed as a union of different
satellite residence blocks around the castle and the economichandicraft
centre. This has enabled the insight of greenery
from the peripheral area toward the centre by the form of an
uninterrupted line.
- The surprising and organic spontaneity of the city
grid conception is associated to the conception and very
distinctive formal solution of the residential block whether
big or small. The residential block is characterized by the
perimetral roads and the 1 or 2 store buildings lined up
along the perimeter leaving the centre free for the yards. It
happens that the perimeter of the block is not entirely closed
with buildings realizing the infiltration of greenery from the
periphery toward the centre enriching the urban free space
structure with the most natural element.
- The position of the buildings in the territory or in
the plots very spontaneous, occasional following only one
apparent principle: to adapt with the property, the road and
not to interfere with the neighbors.
All these qualities of the form and the urban landscape
of Elbasan, realized through the years in the service of the
social relations and the quality of life and living, makes you
think about how much has this city lost from the interventions
of a cultivated urban plan, academic,
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Papers by joli mitrojorgji
focus on three elements: the core, the part where we seek
the very start and where the urban elements are full of
history; residential blocks and the street grid structure
that goes within; the limits of the city, the obstacles that
have influenced on the actual urban development and the
tendencies for the future come at last.
The plan of the city is very expressive. This document
and the personal experience of the urban environment tells
us about how have been created the living environment and
what are his values and his aesthetically accomplishments.
The most sustainable city-forming urban elements are:
the core or the bazaar, mostly representing the start of the
settlement; the residential block as a testimony of the way of
life within the architectural unit, but most of all representing
the relations between spatial and universal, individual and
collective, public and private; the public space as the most
important part of the urban space, including the private one.
In this study, we will focus on the core of the cities,
even though few examples have reached our days, but in
some cases they have shaped the morphological and spatial
structure of the city centers of today. Today we face the loss
of the old bazaars of Berat, Shkodra, Elbasan, Kavaja, Tirana
and partially the old bazaar of Korça. Meanwhile we can
still appreciate the old bazaar of Gjirokastra, Korça, Çarshia
of Peja and Gjakova in Kosovo.
We are aware that the logic of contemporary development
cannot accept the imitation of this architecture but it is not
permitted to alter the symbolic of this architecture, to destroy
history or even peoples’ heritage. These places are identified
as “locus”, as pathological elements in the urban body.
A “place”, a “locus” identified as such from the past
and present, must be preserved as an “idea”, today and
the days to come, independently from the architecture that
characterizes it, because it is or seeks to be a city-forming
idea, it is a cultural and social culture. It is a way of life and
behavior. It is memory and cradle to its identity.
Focusing the study on the old Albanian bazaars, we
aim to ease the reading and point to the values of an urban
phenomenon, identity the historical and spatial values of this
urban object, helping in the design of intervention programs,
to preserve the physical and spiritual homogeneity of urban
life.
For this purpose the maps of 1930-1950 of cities like
Berat, Gjirokastra, Korça, Elbasan, Kavaja, Tirana, Shkodra
and Peja and Gjakova in Kosovo have been redrawn. It will
reside in the urban morphology and the spatial structure in
the economic-social centres of these cities.
These centres in the Albanian cities are organized in
two ways: as separated neighborhoods in the centre or in the
periphery like Berat, Korça, Tirana, Shkodra e Elbasani, or
as e shopping street as a part of the street grid of the city like
Kavaja, Gjirokastra, Vlora and Gjakova.
Another interesting element is the position of the object of cult and of the administrative buildings in the bazaars
of the traditional cities. The towers of clock are elements
of reference in the urban landscape. We have cases where
the cult objects surround the bazaar from all sides like in
Tirana, when they surround the bazaar from only one side
like in Berat, Shkodra and Korça, create a line through the
bazaar like in Elbasan, and also they may have important
places within the bazaar like in Kavaja, Peja, Gjakova,
Vlora or Gjirokastra.
It is worth mentioning the urban nodes within and in
the perimeter of the bazaar that cannot be treated only as
crossroads but also as entrance or exit, as well as connection
points of the urban structure of the bazaars with the rest of
the city. These nodes may be points with a high level treading
activity. Sometimes, they may create tendencies to form
public spaces, without reaching entirely its characteristics
because of the non-inviting functions, their dimensions or
the high intensity of movement in them.
As a conclusion, the bazaars of the traditional Albanian
cities are the most active core of the city. They are multi functional
spaces, including cult objects and where the street
nodes are very live and active elements. Different analysis
can be done about the bazaars. Let’s hope that this study
have reached its purpose to know and appreciate them,
while facing the fact city life as it was, with all the identity,
traditional knowledge and spatial values is being lost.
expectancy over 2500 years old, but how is it possible to
resist through time, for so long. Which are the factors that
have made possible the continuity of social and cultural life
of the traditional Albanian cities? The Albanian society has
been developed and transformed in accordance to the state
organizations of the civilizations that have left their traces
all over our territory but, another form of legislation, that of
the canon law, has coexisted with the central power.
As for the building environment, we will show a historic
document, the byzantine building code, the treatise of Ascalon
from Palestine, written between 531-533 A.D., that widened its
influence in the Balkan countries; on the other hand, we will
numerate the building codes incorporated in the Canon Law
that have contributed in the creation of the build environment
of the traditional settlements, such as Gjirokastra.
First of all, the main issues discussed in the Treatise of
Ascalon can be summarized as below: the change in the build
environment is a natural process, but in the face of ongoing
change, it is necessary to maintain an equitable equilibrium
in the built environment; change, particularly that occurring
among proximate neighbors, creates potential for damages
to existing dwelling and other uses; in principle, property
owners have the freedom to do what they are pleased on
their own property, but constrained by preexisting conditions
of neighboring properties; the compact built environment
of ancient towns necessitates the implementation of
interdependence rights among citizens, principally among
proximate neighbors; the public realm must not be subjected
to damages that result from activities or waste originating
in the private realm; the panorama is important to preserve
because they give pleasure to the community and they carry
cultural values of a traditional settlement; public realm is
protected from all damages.
Second of all, Albanian popular legal corpus treats
issues such as: the change in the built environment is
accepted as obligatory condition for the development and
improvement of social and community life; intervention
in the built environment must avoid damages in the public
realm; the freedom to act within the boundaries as long as
this activity prevents damages to others; the public realm
must not be damaged and cooperation is stimulated for
the common good.
The analysis of the city-formation process of Gjirokastra
will be based on the direct relations with the Canon of
Labëria, as central city of the region. The study of the city
development has to be viewed as a process and as a product.
The process implies the entirety of actions for the decisionmaking,
and on the other side, the product implies the results
in the urban structure of a settlement and the values of the
historical landscape.
Based on Gjirokastra key-study, the amazing result
of this world heritage property, we think that we should
sustain our building process in some local codes because:
the legislation is not always applicable for the good of
local identity of the traditional settlements, we shall
preserve the inherited cultural identity, we shall take
in consideration the man and his psychology deeply
embodied in the cultural and historical environment, and
we shall improve life quality, the sense of community and
the interdependence of man with the public space. Many
arguments can be listed, but the purpose is to create a
favorable law corpus from the top and local codes from
below to help the revitalization, transformation and
development process. The study of the canon and their
relations with the urban processes helps in the right
formulation of building legislation, but also of the city codes or specific regulation of every living settlement.
of the settlement’s form considering the city as an urban object
and most of all as a cultural object, not only a creation of the
human society but also aesthetic, carrier of universal values, that
are inherited and transmitted from generation to generation.
More than any other architectonic isolated object,
the structure of the urban settlements has resisted time, a
structure that has accepted change, transformation and
development from time to time.
When we realize studies in the morphological field, this
does not mean that today we should copy from tradition
and the forms of the past, but, it means we should find the
ways that these studies serve to distinguish principles and
experiences through the understanding of the concepts,
models and theories that analyze the human environment.
This is possible by studying the environment from two
perspectives: in one hand there is the city as a long creative
process and from the other hand the study of the city as a
product of this disciplined process.
Staying within the idea of this study, we should point out
the fact that we are going to concentrate in the analysis of the
values of the urban situation of the city of Elbasan before 1960,
a time that sets a clear limit between the city from the past and
the first interventions in his urban structure from urban planners
that tried to respond to the necessities of the time.
What has been distinguished in this short analysis?
First of all, we distinguish the sustainable strategic,
geo-morphological and economic principles that have
determined the position of the city of Elbasan.
Another distinctive element is the stability of the urban
structure of the city, visible and present nowadays in his
plan. This structure was consolidated in long periods of time
accepting as non-conditional phenomena:
- Evolution in time and the territorial expansion through
an organic logic, but also, by overcoming the geographic
and natural barriers.
- The urban structure, protecting her identity, accepts
change, adaptation and transformation as indispensable
conceptual elements of the urban form in her efforts to
respond to the phenomena of the social and urban life of the
city.
• In Elbasan, in the general form of the urban structure
we distinguish:
- The extension of the settlement’s buildings in a very
rational way under the logic of creation in time, dense and
crystallized entirely in the Castle and the Bazaar quarter,
less dense and still carrying the inner energy of the forming
process in the quarters around her.
- The main roads are those in the most important
directions of the city, from east, west and south.
- The grid of the urban structure seems to adapt to the
geometry of the castle quarter, but it does not, nor inside the
castle where the grid is distorted. It would be necessary to
accentuate the organic nature, not orthogonal of the urban
grid that stands for casual suppleness, visual short and fluid
perspectives, not geometrical and spontaneous urban spaces
developed in a flat ground.
-The city urban grid is distinguished for the creation of the
street rings giving more than an option to approach the house.
ELBASAN, THE LOST IDENTITY OF A CITY
Maksim MITROJORGJI
Joli MITROJORGJI
76 Maksim MITROJORGJI - Joli MITROJORGJI
-The city quarters are formed as a union of different
satellite residence blocks around the castle and the economichandicraft
centre. This has enabled the insight of greenery
from the peripheral area toward the centre by the form of an
uninterrupted line.
- The surprising and organic spontaneity of the city
grid conception is associated to the conception and very
distinctive formal solution of the residential block whether
big or small. The residential block is characterized by the
perimetral roads and the 1 or 2 store buildings lined up
along the perimeter leaving the centre free for the yards. It
happens that the perimeter of the block is not entirely closed
with buildings realizing the infiltration of greenery from the
periphery toward the centre enriching the urban free space
structure with the most natural element.
- The position of the buildings in the territory or in
the plots very spontaneous, occasional following only one
apparent principle: to adapt with the property, the road and
not to interfere with the neighbors.
All these qualities of the form and the urban landscape
of Elbasan, realized through the years in the service of the
social relations and the quality of life and living, makes you
think about how much has this city lost from the interventions
of a cultivated urban plan, academic,
focus on three elements: the core, the part where we seek
the very start and where the urban elements are full of
history; residential blocks and the street grid structure
that goes within; the limits of the city, the obstacles that
have influenced on the actual urban development and the
tendencies for the future come at last.
The plan of the city is very expressive. This document
and the personal experience of the urban environment tells
us about how have been created the living environment and
what are his values and his aesthetically accomplishments.
The most sustainable city-forming urban elements are:
the core or the bazaar, mostly representing the start of the
settlement; the residential block as a testimony of the way of
life within the architectural unit, but most of all representing
the relations between spatial and universal, individual and
collective, public and private; the public space as the most
important part of the urban space, including the private one.
In this study, we will focus on the core of the cities,
even though few examples have reached our days, but in
some cases they have shaped the morphological and spatial
structure of the city centers of today. Today we face the loss
of the old bazaars of Berat, Shkodra, Elbasan, Kavaja, Tirana
and partially the old bazaar of Korça. Meanwhile we can
still appreciate the old bazaar of Gjirokastra, Korça, Çarshia
of Peja and Gjakova in Kosovo.
We are aware that the logic of contemporary development
cannot accept the imitation of this architecture but it is not
permitted to alter the symbolic of this architecture, to destroy
history or even peoples’ heritage. These places are identified
as “locus”, as pathological elements in the urban body.
A “place”, a “locus” identified as such from the past
and present, must be preserved as an “idea”, today and
the days to come, independently from the architecture that
characterizes it, because it is or seeks to be a city-forming
idea, it is a cultural and social culture. It is a way of life and
behavior. It is memory and cradle to its identity.
Focusing the study on the old Albanian bazaars, we
aim to ease the reading and point to the values of an urban
phenomenon, identity the historical and spatial values of this
urban object, helping in the design of intervention programs,
to preserve the physical and spiritual homogeneity of urban
life.
For this purpose the maps of 1930-1950 of cities like
Berat, Gjirokastra, Korça, Elbasan, Kavaja, Tirana, Shkodra
and Peja and Gjakova in Kosovo have been redrawn. It will
reside in the urban morphology and the spatial structure in
the economic-social centres of these cities.
These centres in the Albanian cities are organized in
two ways: as separated neighborhoods in the centre or in the
periphery like Berat, Korça, Tirana, Shkodra e Elbasani, or
as e shopping street as a part of the street grid of the city like
Kavaja, Gjirokastra, Vlora and Gjakova.
Another interesting element is the position of the object of cult and of the administrative buildings in the bazaars
of the traditional cities. The towers of clock are elements
of reference in the urban landscape. We have cases where
the cult objects surround the bazaar from all sides like in
Tirana, when they surround the bazaar from only one side
like in Berat, Shkodra and Korça, create a line through the
bazaar like in Elbasan, and also they may have important
places within the bazaar like in Kavaja, Peja, Gjakova,
Vlora or Gjirokastra.
It is worth mentioning the urban nodes within and in
the perimeter of the bazaar that cannot be treated only as
crossroads but also as entrance or exit, as well as connection
points of the urban structure of the bazaars with the rest of
the city. These nodes may be points with a high level treading
activity. Sometimes, they may create tendencies to form
public spaces, without reaching entirely its characteristics
because of the non-inviting functions, their dimensions or
the high intensity of movement in them.
As a conclusion, the bazaars of the traditional Albanian
cities are the most active core of the city. They are multi functional
spaces, including cult objects and where the street
nodes are very live and active elements. Different analysis
can be done about the bazaars. Let’s hope that this study
have reached its purpose to know and appreciate them,
while facing the fact city life as it was, with all the identity,
traditional knowledge and spatial values is being lost.
expectancy over 2500 years old, but how is it possible to
resist through time, for so long. Which are the factors that
have made possible the continuity of social and cultural life
of the traditional Albanian cities? The Albanian society has
been developed and transformed in accordance to the state
organizations of the civilizations that have left their traces
all over our territory but, another form of legislation, that of
the canon law, has coexisted with the central power.
As for the building environment, we will show a historic
document, the byzantine building code, the treatise of Ascalon
from Palestine, written between 531-533 A.D., that widened its
influence in the Balkan countries; on the other hand, we will
numerate the building codes incorporated in the Canon Law
that have contributed in the creation of the build environment
of the traditional settlements, such as Gjirokastra.
First of all, the main issues discussed in the Treatise of
Ascalon can be summarized as below: the change in the build
environment is a natural process, but in the face of ongoing
change, it is necessary to maintain an equitable equilibrium
in the built environment; change, particularly that occurring
among proximate neighbors, creates potential for damages
to existing dwelling and other uses; in principle, property
owners have the freedom to do what they are pleased on
their own property, but constrained by preexisting conditions
of neighboring properties; the compact built environment
of ancient towns necessitates the implementation of
interdependence rights among citizens, principally among
proximate neighbors; the public realm must not be subjected
to damages that result from activities or waste originating
in the private realm; the panorama is important to preserve
because they give pleasure to the community and they carry
cultural values of a traditional settlement; public realm is
protected from all damages.
Second of all, Albanian popular legal corpus treats
issues such as: the change in the built environment is
accepted as obligatory condition for the development and
improvement of social and community life; intervention
in the built environment must avoid damages in the public
realm; the freedom to act within the boundaries as long as
this activity prevents damages to others; the public realm
must not be damaged and cooperation is stimulated for
the common good.
The analysis of the city-formation process of Gjirokastra
will be based on the direct relations with the Canon of
Labëria, as central city of the region. The study of the city
development has to be viewed as a process and as a product.
The process implies the entirety of actions for the decisionmaking,
and on the other side, the product implies the results
in the urban structure of a settlement and the values of the
historical landscape.
Based on Gjirokastra key-study, the amazing result
of this world heritage property, we think that we should
sustain our building process in some local codes because:
the legislation is not always applicable for the good of
local identity of the traditional settlements, we shall
preserve the inherited cultural identity, we shall take
in consideration the man and his psychology deeply
embodied in the cultural and historical environment, and
we shall improve life quality, the sense of community and
the interdependence of man with the public space. Many
arguments can be listed, but the purpose is to create a
favorable law corpus from the top and local codes from
below to help the revitalization, transformation and
development process. The study of the canon and their
relations with the urban processes helps in the right
formulation of building legislation, but also of the city codes or specific regulation of every living settlement.
of the settlement’s form considering the city as an urban object
and most of all as a cultural object, not only a creation of the
human society but also aesthetic, carrier of universal values, that
are inherited and transmitted from generation to generation.
More than any other architectonic isolated object,
the structure of the urban settlements has resisted time, a
structure that has accepted change, transformation and
development from time to time.
When we realize studies in the morphological field, this
does not mean that today we should copy from tradition
and the forms of the past, but, it means we should find the
ways that these studies serve to distinguish principles and
experiences through the understanding of the concepts,
models and theories that analyze the human environment.
This is possible by studying the environment from two
perspectives: in one hand there is the city as a long creative
process and from the other hand the study of the city as a
product of this disciplined process.
Staying within the idea of this study, we should point out
the fact that we are going to concentrate in the analysis of the
values of the urban situation of the city of Elbasan before 1960,
a time that sets a clear limit between the city from the past and
the first interventions in his urban structure from urban planners
that tried to respond to the necessities of the time.
What has been distinguished in this short analysis?
First of all, we distinguish the sustainable strategic,
geo-morphological and economic principles that have
determined the position of the city of Elbasan.
Another distinctive element is the stability of the urban
structure of the city, visible and present nowadays in his
plan. This structure was consolidated in long periods of time
accepting as non-conditional phenomena:
- Evolution in time and the territorial expansion through
an organic logic, but also, by overcoming the geographic
and natural barriers.
- The urban structure, protecting her identity, accepts
change, adaptation and transformation as indispensable
conceptual elements of the urban form in her efforts to
respond to the phenomena of the social and urban life of the
city.
• In Elbasan, in the general form of the urban structure
we distinguish:
- The extension of the settlement’s buildings in a very
rational way under the logic of creation in time, dense and
crystallized entirely in the Castle and the Bazaar quarter,
less dense and still carrying the inner energy of the forming
process in the quarters around her.
- The main roads are those in the most important
directions of the city, from east, west and south.
- The grid of the urban structure seems to adapt to the
geometry of the castle quarter, but it does not, nor inside the
castle where the grid is distorted. It would be necessary to
accentuate the organic nature, not orthogonal of the urban
grid that stands for casual suppleness, visual short and fluid
perspectives, not geometrical and spontaneous urban spaces
developed in a flat ground.
-The city urban grid is distinguished for the creation of the
street rings giving more than an option to approach the house.
ELBASAN, THE LOST IDENTITY OF A CITY
Maksim MITROJORGJI
Joli MITROJORGJI
76 Maksim MITROJORGJI - Joli MITROJORGJI
-The city quarters are formed as a union of different
satellite residence blocks around the castle and the economichandicraft
centre. This has enabled the insight of greenery
from the peripheral area toward the centre by the form of an
uninterrupted line.
- The surprising and organic spontaneity of the city
grid conception is associated to the conception and very
distinctive formal solution of the residential block whether
big or small. The residential block is characterized by the
perimetral roads and the 1 or 2 store buildings lined up
along the perimeter leaving the centre free for the yards. It
happens that the perimeter of the block is not entirely closed
with buildings realizing the infiltration of greenery from the
periphery toward the centre enriching the urban free space
structure with the most natural element.
- The position of the buildings in the territory or in
the plots very spontaneous, occasional following only one
apparent principle: to adapt with the property, the road and
not to interfere with the neighbors.
All these qualities of the form and the urban landscape
of Elbasan, realized through the years in the service of the
social relations and the quality of life and living, makes you
think about how much has this city lost from the interventions
of a cultivated urban plan, academic,