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Tirana: a capital city transformed by theItaliansPatrizia Capolino aa Osservatorio sul Moderno a Roma, Dipartimento di Architettura, SapienzaUniversità di Roma, via Pienza 226, 00139, Roma, Italy
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To cite this article: Patrizia Capolino (2011): Tirana: a capital city transformed by the Italians, PlanningPerspectives, 26:4, 591-615
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Tirana: a capital city transformed by the Italians
Patrizia Capolino∗
Osservatorio sul Moderno a Roma, Dipartimento di Architettura, Sapienza Universita di Roma,via Pienza 226, 00139, Roma, Italy
The city of Tirana was transformed into a capital city between 1923 and 1943. Thistransformation took place during a period when there was close collaboration betweenItaly and Albania and can be divided both by political history and architectural styles intotwo stages: first, under the monarchy of the Albanian King Zog and then the actualannexation of Albania by Italy at the time of the Second World War. The first stage, from1920 to 1939, began with the proclamation of Tirana as the capital of Albania. It wasmarked by Zogu’s presence on the political scene and his close ties with Italy. In 1939,with the fall of the Albanian monarchy, the country was put under Italian Fascist rulefrom 1939 to 1943. The paper is divided into two parts, corresponding to the twohistorical periods. Each one examines plans and projects for the city’s transformation andthe strategies put into effect to represent political power, as well as ties and legaciesinherited from the past. Town planning actions are, therefore, described from three pointsof view: the organization of urban structures and housing policies; the relationship withthe pre-existing situation; modes of urban growth and the underlying social vision. Theanalysis is based on a study of the urban fabric before and after the various changes,divided into the principal time frames of 1916, 1937, 1943 and 1953. The study is basedmainly on original documents from the Technical Archives for Construction of Tirana.1
Keywords: Italian Fascist urban planning; Tirana; colonial planners; capital city project
‘Building cities has always been a way to represent man’s power in the world and express hisdominion over time’.2 A city’s form does, in fact, frequently reflect the form of government inpower and yet, at the same time, the physical remains of the past still existing in the city and theconstruction of societies, past and present, are undeniably intertwined. This is also true ofTirana. A city’s structures and buildings tell the story of its political past. The Muslim cityfounded in 1614, when the Mosque of Suleyman Pasha was erected, was transformed intothe capital of the Kingdom of Albania by Zogu (1920–1939) and re-designed by the Fascistgovernment for purposes of self-representation (1939–1943). The changes did not consistmerely in the traslatio of pre-existing monuments into new urban contexts, but also in therearrangement of squares and buildings to reflect a different vision of society and the systemof political power. This legacy left its mark on the city’s subsequent development under Com-munist rule and lives on in the city of the present time. Many projects, begun while the capitalcity was being constructed, remained unfinished, suspended, awaiting a definition that has yetto take shape today. Armando Brasini’s majestic boulevard, created to represent the power ofKing Zogu, then redesigned and completed by Gherardo Bosio as a symbol of the Fascistregime, remained unfinished, empty of buildings, flanked only by greenery. The city built in
ISSN 0266-5433 print/ISSN 1466-4518 online# 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2011.601610
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∗Email: [email protected]
Planning PerspectivesVol. 26, No. 4, October 2011, 591–615
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the Socialist period also had no choice but to continue the previous layout in many respects.The great courtyards of the residential housing complexes follow the outline of Bosio’splan, though expressed in the form permitted by the Communist regime. Very different govern-ment organizations have thus reinterpreted and redesigned the same urban structures, in theform we know today.
The city of Tirana’s capacity for reorganization and for holding together different cultures isa characteristic feature, which reveals itself in many aspects. Different ethnic groups and reli-gions have always coexisted in Tirana. In 1920, there were churches, some of them veryancient, dating back to the fourth century AD, along with the mosques, with which theyshared the same urban space. The architectural language is an expression of this cohabitation.Side by side with Islamic architecture and buildings, inspired by the distinctive local culture,Tirana also has an architecture of European origin due to the fact that Albanian architectsstudied in academies throughout Europe. From 1920 to 1945, the coexistence of differentstyles is even more marked, owing to the presence of numerous Italian architects who weregiven the task of planning most public works. Subsequently, under Communist rule, Albaniawithdrew from the rest of the world and only maintained contact with the countries ofEastern Europe. Despite the isolation architectural culture had to endure, it attempted, thoughbelatedly, to make a foray into modernity and an attempt was made with some of the buildingsto incorporate modernist elements in recognition of the contemporary international architecturaldebate.
After the fall of the regime, Tirana once more opened up to the outside world and regained itshistorical position as a city open to new influences. The very recent town planning policiescarried out since 2000 by Edi Rama, Mayor of Tirana, must be considered in this light. Hehas once again launched Tirana on the international scene by implementing new urban projects:by painting the facades of the blocks of grey buildings, a legacy of the Communist period, togive them colour and dignity; by demolishing the houses along the river Lama to give acentral role to public space; and by announcing international architecture competitions toreplan the city’s urban layout and attract architects from all over the world.
Building the capital city in the light of the old Islamic town and its layout in 1916
On 20 January 1920, Tirana was declared the capital of Albania by the Congress of Lushnje.Since Tirana was neither Albania’s largest city nor the most important from a historical pointof view, it was probably chosen for geopolitical reasons. Once the country had been unified,it was important for the new capital to be situated as centrally as possible in order to encouragerelations between the various regions, inhabited by people belonging to different ethnic groupsin the North and the South. The area of Tirana was particularly suited to the development of amodern city. On level ground, bounded by two rivers, the Tirana and the Lana, and protected byMount Dajti, with a mild climate and not too far from the sea and the port of Durres, Tirana waseasy to reach, thanks to the roads from Elbasan, Dibra, Durres, Shkodra and Kavaje leadingdirectly to the centre of town. A topographical survey of the city carried out in 19163 providesa clear indication of its layout just before the commencement of works related to its new status ascapital (Figure 1).
In those times, Tirana had no more than 15,000 inhabitants and the typical structure of anIslamic city.4 In the centre of town, next to the Prince’s palace and the palace of Parliament,
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not far from the souk, the market and the throbbing heart of the city, stood the Mosque ofSuleyman Pasha, the city’s oldest mosque erected in 1614. In many histories of Tirana, the foun-dation of the town is made to coincide with the building of the mosque, though in fact Tirana hadbeen inhabited for several centuries.5 The central role given to the building of the mosque is,therefore, the equivalent to an act of foundation and far more than a purely town planningaction or a symbolic event of an ethical-religious nature. It modifies the urban structure sothat it takes on certain distinctive features. The site chosen to build a mosque was never fortui-tous and always had a symbolic meaning. It also frequently coincided with the site of a previousplace of worship. Initially, religious Muslims arranged four stones on the ground to make certainthe new building faced towards Mecca. Once that had been established, the city’s economic andpolitical life was organized around the mosque, the importance of regular prayer dictating thephysical layout of the city.
The Mosque of Suleyman Pasha was erected where the roads leading to Tirana from the restof the country converged to form the centre of the town (Figure 2). Besides the Mosque ofSuleyman Pasha, in 1916, the town was dotted with eight other mosques6 and some churches.Behind the centre of the town, near the bazaar, the military training school overlooked a practicefield, an area entirely free of buildings stretching as far as the banks of the Lana. The residentialareas, in contrast to these public buildings, consisted of low-rise houses, houses with vegetableplots and gardens and dead-end streets, an organization in keeping with the social structure ofIslamic culture, divided into family groups. These developments were clustered along the prin-cipal roads from which the town streets branched off, overlooked by the gardens of the houses.
Figure 1. Plan of Tirana, Skender Frasheri 1921 (Archivio Tecnico delle Costruzioni di Tirana).
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For this reason, the town streets were not lined with buildings. Large buildings were only to befound in the central part of the town, where the storehouses were situated.
Tirana was an open city without walls or any other form of outer defence and the local roadsfrom Elbasan, Dibra, Durres, Shkodra and Kavaje ran right through it, passing through the centreof town. Only a short stretch of road to the north skirted the town and connected the road toDurres with the one to Dibra. This same feature also marked the relations between town andcountry – the former was gently penetrated by the latter, without a distinct separationbetween the two. In 1916, Tirana still had a rural look, with dirty roads, isolated low buildingsbuilt of poor material, a souk consisting of temporary structures and small-sized mosques.Despite its frail structure, it was a city with a complex layout which included all the town’scomponents and a hierarchic urban fabric. The layout could not be compared with the modelof the European nineteenth-century city, but it was definitely more than a mere village, assome European visitors described it. For example, Decio Cinti’s book on the European capitalssays: ‘Tirana, the capital, has around 15,000 inhabitants and, though the great future theAlbanians predict for it is certain, in point of fact it is only a large village’.7
The new capital’s first town plan, 1923–1939
The first plan of Tirana, drawn up to build the capital of the new Albanian nation, took a longtime to prepare, from 1923 to 1929. During this period, various urban design projects and plan-ning schemes were drawn up and influenced its conception. The plan’s last version, dated 1929,remained the instrument of reference until 1939. The significant feature of this period is the pres-ence of Zogu on the Albanian political scene. In 1925, he was elected president of the Republic
Figure 2. The centre of Tirana 1927 (post card).
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of Albania8 and in 1928, he became the first King of Albania9 and remained on the throne untilthe fall of the monarchy in 1939. With regard to international politics, it is a period characterizedby close links between Albania and Italy. Since the proclamation of Gjirokaster,10 the Italiangovernment had promised to support Albania’s independence and to give financial aid too.11
In 1925, this commitment took form when the SVEA, Society for the Economic Developmentof Albania12 was established, which not only guaranteed financial aid, but also the use of Italianfirms and labour to build the country’s infrastructures.
Over a period of 10 years, from 1925 to 1935, the SVEA carried out a very complex publicworks programme extending to the whole of Albania.13 Investment followed two principalguidelines: the construction of public facilities to ensure political stability; and the implemen-tation of infrastructures linking the principal towns to facilitate the movement of goods andthe development of the mining industry. A huge amount of work was done resulting in theimplementation of a great number of public works in the principal Albanian cities: Tirana,Vlora, Durres, Elbasan, Porto Edda, Berat and Milot.14 Major transport infrastructures were con-structed: ports, roads and bridges that changed the communications map of Albania linkingDurres with Elbasan, Shkodra with Berat, Shkodra with Puca, Elbasan with Coriza, Vlorawith Santi Quaranta and Tepeleni, etc. Between 1929 and 1936, more than one hundredlong-span bridges were built. Work on the port of Durres,15 one of the most impressive projects,began in this period. Construction firms from Italy and other countries were called in,16 thecredit for importing modern building techniques was based on the use of reinforced concrete,still little used in Albania at the time, goes to them. Up to then, traditional building techniquesusing unfired bricks and wood prevailed in the construction of civil buildings. Many Italianarchitects took part in these projects, including leading figures such as Armando Brasini,Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo, Florestano di Fausto, Giulio Berte. Italy also played an importantrole in the construction of the new capital, with regard to both the layout of the urban planand the construction of its buildings.
The first project for the centre of Tirana was designed in 1924–1925 by order of the ItalianForeign Minister and under the supervision of Zogu 1,17 which placed a new emphasis on itssymbolic buildings: the Square of Ministries(that later became Skanderberg Square) and thepresidential palace. The project was designed by the Roman architect Armando Brasini, whopresented several options for Tirana, none of which were carried out. However, he played amajor role, since his ideas provided the basis for all subsequent plans. The urban layout ofthis first project18 (Figure 3) was based on the idea of a new city to be erected around theSquare of Ministries and along an urban axis marked by public buildings, indicating the direc-tion of expansion, with the presidential palace predominating – a sort of north/south-orientedstreet effecting a definite separation between the new town and the previous one. Against this,the centre was organized as a large ‘circular’ open plaza shaped by ministerial buildings. Theaxes of the surrounding urban scheme radiated from this square, forming trapezoidal blocksand a system of ring roads around it.
Though monumental, the buildings were low and their facades were characterized by por-ticoes that defined the urban area harmoniously, forming a sort of agora. The presidentialpalace was totally different, situated at a higher level at the end of the boulevard, on an arti-ficial hill with stairs and ramps defining a high base and reinforcing the perspective effect.The point of reference of Brasini’s project is Baroque architecture through which he hopedto launch the new capital onto the European scene. There is no reference to the previous
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town and its monuments. It was as if they had never existed, the very stylistic languageadopted denied the presence of Islamic architecture. Whereas the main square of oldTirana, where the mosque of Suleyman Pasha was situated, was formed by the way buildingswere arranged, the new square reinterpreted instead some principles of Baroque architecture.It was in the square, not in the building, that the Baroque concept of regularity was applied,aiming to make the new public area the main feature of the transformation. In 1925, Albaniawas a parliamentary republic, a form of government, requiring a square with ministry build-ings and a presidential palace.
Brasini’s response to this need was to propose a markedly spectacular architecture, whosepoints of reference are the large-scale Baroque buildings that exalt the symbols of politicalpower. Brasini had presented the same model a few years previously in the ‘UrbeMassima’19 proposed for the Capital Rome: ‘I wish to divide the problems of Rome in the twen-tieth century into two categories: problems of necessity and problems of grandeur. The lattercannot be tackled unless the former have been solved. The problems of necessity spring fromRome’s development and are contained in the combination of houses and communication.Rome’s problems of grandeur are of another kind: the whole of ancient Rome must be freedfrom mediocre disfigurements, but we must create beside the ancient and medieval city themonumental Rome of the twentieth century. Rome cannot and must not be simply a moderncity in the ordinary sense of the word, it must be a city worthy of its glory, and this glorymust be incessantly renewed to be handed down, as a legacy of the present age, to futuregenerations’.20
From this viewpoint, the decision to effect a clear separation between the old and the newTirana can be comprehended, as can the idea of adopting as a point of reference a grandeurin which the allusion to ancient Rome is a universal value that cannot be challenged, a modelto be passed on and exported. Similarly, the presidential palace with its reference to castle archi-tecture – two lateral towers with a circular plan framing the central stairway leading to theportico at the entry – is the same theme that Brasini was preparing for another city, situated
Figure 3. A. Brasini, project for the arrangement of the new centre, 1924/1925 (M. Pisani, Architetturedi Armando Brasini, 1996).
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in the Italian colony of Libya: the Castle and the Headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio ofTripoli. In short, Brasini’s project presents a monumental, Roman Tirana, a city of institutionsthat thanks to the apparatus activated by the construction of the new centre was meant togenerate a development whose iconography was taken for granted, to the point that along theboulevard the architect represents green volumes instead of buildings.
The Technical Archives for the Construction of Tirana contained another drawing attrib-uted to Armando Brasini of the same period as the project described above, presenting adifferent layout of the new centre. The architectural elements are the same, but the rolethey play in the city’s transformation is different. The link between the old city and thenew one is no longer the Square of Ministries, but the great boulevard that leads to thegrand plaza. The axis is interpreted as the medium between the old and new town developedall around the main square, the starting point for radial roads that outline the newly builtenvironment. The presidential palace takes a pride of place in the square, again built on anartificial hill and surrounded by gardens. Neither of Brasini’s projects was carried out, butthe idea of a great boulevard, and above all, that of a city laid out according to a Baroqueconcept of public space, are the principles on which the options presented in subsequentplans were based.
In 1926, a first structural plan for the entire existing city was drawn up by Eshref Frasheri,Castellani and G.Weiss.21 The city was considered the object of an overall intervention and inthe context of this town planning action, a project was drawn up to give shape to public space. Itwas a plan for urban change that directly affected the streets and squares, transforming them intohighly formalized areas. The plan’s structure hinged on the new Square of Ministries, for whichthe area chosen was the unoccupied space in front of the Et’hm Bey Mosque, near the bazaar andopposite the military school, where the training ground was located (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Tirana 1927 (post card).
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This area, being free of buildings, was chosen for the expansion of the new Tirana. The newcapital’s square used political buildings to form a regular space, an elliptical plan defined by theministries and symbolic buildings such as the Law Courts and the Town Hall. Compared withBrasini’s plan, it is certainly a less spectacular city but structured in continuity with the pre-viously existing system of spatial relations. The Ministry buildings are adjusted to the Et’hmBey Mosque, which becomes the plan’s hub and the backdrop of the road to Durres, transformedinto an avenue leading into the city. The square is divided into two by a north/south axis, aproper boulevard which, to the north, takes the form of an urban ‘restructuring axis’, deeplyaffecting the pre-existing built environment. While to the south, though only a hint, it alludedto the one designed by Brasini.
The rehabilitation of the Et’hm Bey Mosque, in the context of the square’s urban layout, tookon a deeply symbolic value since the building was not isolated, but linked to the ministries,expressing a close relationship between the old and the new – a veritable act of re-founding,in which the square representing the new capital was structured around the old mosque. Theplan also shows, in addition to the Square of Ministries, a plaza (named the Esat PashesSquare), where the bazaar is to be moved. Essentially, the plan presents a polycentric, hierarchicurban structure organized in a series of squares and axes reconnecting the old parts of the town tothe new ones. The creation of a new bazaar square, also circular, means that the city’s businessand market centre is moved eastwards, to distinguish between representational Tirana and thetown where regular everyday business is carried out.
With regard to the rest of the town, the plan is almost entirely based on a project designed in1923, putting forward the concept of urban densification. The idea is to straighten the streets,design new ones and broaden the old ones to form big rectangular blocks originating fromthe previously existing principal roads. Many of the cul-de-sac streets are opened up toconnect the various routes and create an uninterrupted urban mesh. This grid ignores theurban structure arranged in groups, breaking them up, in an abstract manner, to enforcing aregular model formed by blocks and formalized space. Only some links of the pre-existingfabric live on, presumably because the new network had to accommodate some of the existingprincipal urban structures. On the whole, it is a re-drawing that establishes a radical break withthe past, despite some elements of continuity with the pre-existing situation, and imposes a newurban and also social organization on the city.
In 1927, just a couple of years later than his earlier project, Armando Brasini drew up anotherproject for the centre of Tirana,22 very different from the previous one. The new configuration isbased on the fresh and new connection with the actual context of the existing city, whichbecomes the element that can break up the exact geometry of the ‘circular’ plaza. The Squareof Ministries take on a complex shape: a semi-circular space shut in on one side by the arc ofa circle, on the other by two-quarters that open up towards the ‘restructuring axis’, nowtraced in continuity with the existing city. The focal point is the arc placed between the two sym-metrical palaces of the Senate and the Parliament. The latter form a sort of propylaeum that is thestarting point of the boulevard, leading to the new Tirana. Beyond the entrance, a hexagonalsquare with a fountain in the centre becomes the point of perspective of the avenue ending atthe presidential palace. The concept of the monumental boulevard is mitigated by a sequenceof spaces following one another with configurations of varying importance. The hedges andgardens along the sides of the boulevard allude to the facades of palaces that it is not necessaryto draw.
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Towards the existing city, the ‘restructuring axis’ arrives at the Square of Ministries gentlyaccompanied by the convex form of the law court and town hall buildings. The Et’hem BeyMosque is preserved and absorbed into the general plan in an interplay of concavity and con-vexity. It takes part in the spatial organization, but its role is definitely a minor one, subordinateto the buildings that give a structure to the main square. In this later project, Brasini used a differ-ent architectural language, moving from a classical score to one in which elements of Tirana’soriental origin come into play, with a reference to the buildings in the Byzantine style. The newproject was not carried out either, though it got as far as being drawn up to the scale of buildingdetails. It represents an attempt to mediate between the old and the new that probably did notseem convincing, then as it still does not now, since it was not able to express the founding prin-ciples of the new design with the same clarity as can be found in the unsuccessful plan of 1926.
In 1928, the first outline of a fresh attempt to draw up a plan23 that extended to the entiretown was made. The basis of the plan of 1926 was resumed in full, or almost, except for partof the main axial feature, the boulevard leading northwards, which was turned insteadtowards the Square of Ministries, into a street ending to the town hall building. The hub ofthe entire urban layout remained the centre of Tirana, the Square of Ministries, the boulevardand the presidential palace. For the first time, however, the drawing shows the new Tirana,the residential town, represented as a garden city. The plan was drawn up by W. Kohler,24
who adopts a model already tested in many European cities. The two prevailing types aresmall blocks of flat and houses. The blocks of flats were located in a built-up area that dependedon three tree-lined axes running parallel to the boulevard, while to the west was an area oflow-rise houses located around a circular park.
The four lateral triangles of the square that made up the large block, enclosing them con-tained green areas that separated them from the rest of the town. Here too the main streetsare lined with trees. The link with the existing town is mediated by the river Lana, canalizedin the central part, which becomes a natural element of separation between the two parts oftown. The long-distance roads from Elbasan, Durres, Dibra, Shkodra and Kavaje still passdirectly through the centre and no transversal link roads are scheduled to channel the trafficin transit into the outer urban belt. The city does not seem to have fixed boundaries or limits,it is an open system that expands in all directions. The development of the existing city, envi-saged as taking place to the east, is represented as large, basically regular blocks without a centrewhose boundaries are: to the north the old road to Dibra and to the south the new axis runningparallel to the river Lana. In this urban district, along the road to Dibra, the SVEA built the largeCivil Hospital complex, the Institute of Biochemistry and some barracks.
The final version of the town plan was drawn up in 1929. Compared with the earlier 1928version, the only, but substantial, difference was the boulevard, which became a structure ofmonumental dimensions that divided the town into two from north to south. The avenue thathad been designed by Brasini for the new town, following the concept presented in the urbanplan of 1926, was prolonged using the ‘restructuring axis’ of the existing town. It was a wideavenue that made a considerable impact on the built environment and ended in a stadium ofmonumental dimensions. The latter was never built, though the construction site was openedand the foundation stone was laid, while the avenue, today still named after Zogu I, was realizedin full. The length of the entire boulevard, from the stadium to the presidential residence,amounted to the grand size of 4.5 km. Thus, the ancient model of an ordered city based onthe perspectives of Baroque seventeenth and eighteenth-century prototypes was eventually
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proposed for Tirana too. To quote Benevolo,25 ‘between 1910 and 1930, this modality becomesan important point of reference for the reorganization and planning of new cities, a model thatcan be proposed and put into effect once more thanks to the means provided by politicalabsolutism’.
In other words, it required sufficient organizational and operational resources that were onlyforthcoming from a powerful government. At this time, Albania could count not only on amonarch, Zogu I, but above all on the support of the Italian government. At the organizationallevel, issues of practical implementation could be handled by the SVEA; at the economic level,there were international financial agreements. Thus, paradoxically, at this precise historicalmoment, there was a chance when political organization and plans for the new developmentof the city of Tirana coincided perfectly, yet at the project level, the plan was divorced fromthe patterns of evolution of the historical city that had preceded it. The records of the plandemonstrate the extreme simplification of the planning model, resulting in a type of convention-al academic stylistic form, foreign to the Albanian cultural context. A great boulevard builtthrough the midst of a small, modest town of low density, destroys and erases it, cuttingthrough the complex, but fragile texture of the Islamic town. When first drawn up in 1925, Bra-sini’s project was confined to the representational town and therefore maintained a margin ofconsistency, keeping at a set distance from the pre-existing city and therefore ensuring its pres-ervation. On the contrary, the plan of 1929 made radical changes to the old Tirana, modifying itsstructure.
We are not informed of Brasini’s real role in the axis’ transformation, though in a drawingdated 1930, he examined the city’s limitations in order to systematize and give consistency tothe plan’s general layout. The city was inscribed in a perfect circle and, once again, hepresented a classical iconography attempting spatial equilibrium on an urban scale too. Thearchitect built an image of beauty within the idea of perfection. Along the circumference ofthe city’s perimeter, he defined eight vertices, two of which were established by theintersection of the great boulevard, the others by roads axes and by the river Lana. Contraryto what one would expect, the geometrical centre was not set in the Square of Ministries,where instead the consular roads converged, but in the ‘circular’ plaza of the new bazaar.This makes it clear why the old bazaar needed to be moved, so that the two areas could beclearly separated and each one could then establish consistent relations with its own part oftown. But in 1929, when work began on the Square of Ministries, designed in detail byFlorestano di Fausto, it was obvious that Brasini’s project for the square had definitivelybeen discarded.
Florestano di Fausto’s design was based on the 1926 structural plan for the city as a whole:an ellipse with two foci on whose bisecting line the ministry buildings were positioned. TheMinistries of Economy and Education were placed next to the the Et’hem Bey Mosque toexpress at least a token of continuity between past and present. The overall project was basedon geometrical equilibrium, building proportions and symmetry of composition. Behind thecentral square (Figure 5), a detail drawing on a scale of 1:1000, shows a minor square with achurch, a significant presence testifying yet again to the coexistence of different religions inthe same urban space. We do not possess other studies and drawings dating after 1930, so con-sequently, the 1929 plan has to be considered the plan of Zogu I. The plan was carried out foraround a decade, from 1929 to 1939. A survey of the town in 1937, undertaken by the MilitaryGeographical Institute of Florence on a scale of 1:5000, is an important document because it
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enables us to assess the actual degree of implementation of the plan and the heritage bequeathedto the Fascist government.
In 20 years, the town had changed greatly and had been presented with new infrastructuresand services, thanks to Italy’s substantial financial contribution through the SVEA.26 The urbanspread had tripled and the number of inhabitants had risen from 15,000 to 35,000. Building wasconcentrated in areas located along two directions, to the west, the consular road to Durres wasextended and various factories and the airport had been built along this line; while eastwards,
Figure 5. Master plan of Tirana 1929, management of the city centre (Archivio Tecnico delle Costru-zioni di Tirana).
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along the Dibra road (named Rr. Bajaram Curri), a large complex had been built, which includedthe civil hospital, the technical school, the biochemistry institute and some barracks. The‘circular’ plaza of the new bazaar had been partially constructed and the bazaar building hadalso been erected. In the urban sector to the east, the density of residential buildings hadincreased considerably.
With regard to the centre of Tirana (Figure 6), from the same document, we can infer that theSquare of Ministries had been almost entirely constructed, six ministry buildings and the townhall had been built, along with the National Bank of Albania, behind the square, designed by theItalian architect Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo. The boulevard leading southwards had been com-pleted up to the river Lana, over which a bridge had been built. The garden city had begun totake shape: the first streets had been laid out, apportionments marked and the first housesbuilt. To the north, demolition work had been carried out and the boulevard was laid out inits entirety. Along the boulevard, the SVEA had begun work on two buildings, the Institutefor Maternity and Childhood and the Chemistry Institute opposite it. It was an impressiverecord of achievement.
Urban strategies 1938–1943
In April 1939, Albania was annexed27 to the Kingdom of Italy and remained under Italian ruleuntil September 194328 when the control passed to the military forces of Germany. On 20 April1939, the Economic–Customs–Monetary Agreement had been drawn up, which decreed the
Figure 6. Skanderbeg Square 1939 (post card).
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customs union between the two countries and the extension to Albania of all commercial trea-ties, prohibitions and agreements in force in Italy as well as the coverage of the Albanian Francby the Italian Lira. Two new institutions were set up to manage the development programme,one in Italy and one in Albania: the Undersecretaryship of Albanian Affairs, headed byZenone Benini, at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and the King’s General Deputyship,headed by Francesco di Jacomoni di San Savino, in Tirana. The Central Office for Building andTown Planning29 was also established in Tirana, headed by the Florentine architect GherardoBosio.30 This office was to be the counterpart of the one planned by Bosio for AddisAbaba,31 inspired by the same goals and principles determined for AOI (Italian East Africa).
It was entrusted with the task of preparing, according to unified guidelines, the town plansfor Albania’s cities, which applied both to new towns to be founded and plans for urban renewal,and of scheduling and controlling all infrastructures and installations, from railways to indus-tries. It was also supposed to monitor the building activities of private parties32 in the variouslocalities to ensure that the process of development was ‘rational, uniform and orderly’, accord-ing to the principles of the regime. Under Bosio’s direction, the town plans of the followingcities, besides Tirana, were carried out: Vlore, Elbasan, Milot, Coritza, Durres, Berat, Gjiroka-ster and Porto Edda.33 The office34 became effective in July 1939. In short, in Albania there wasan attempt, through the contemporaneous preparation of urban plans for the principal cities, tocarry out the national policy that was a cornerstone of Fascist town planning. In a series ofarticles published in ‘Quadrante’, E. Rogers, G.L. Banfi. L.B. Belgioioso and E. Peressuttihad launched the theory of the corporate town founded on the formulation of ‘a national planthat making it possible to establish beforehand, in the general interest, the functions to beassigned to each city. The city would then become a corporate town and reflect the corporatecharacter of the Fascist regime, very different from liberal anarchy or oppressive collectivismbecause, within the limits imposed from above, each city could preserve the individuality ofits formal context, the originality of its aspect’.35
As a consequence of Albania’s annexation to Italy, the development programme embarkedon in the first period was speeded up greatly, since it was considered as being closely connectedto the Italian national policy. In this context, the industrial plan became of overriding impor-tance. Various sectors were the object of intervention. First of all, the exploitation of miningactivities, especially oil and chromium, with the aim of obtaining raw materials to supportthe Italian heavy industry. Consequently, the infrastructure programme had already begun bySVEA in the first period and subsequently managed by SOFINES, which replaced it in 1936,became urgent. A plan for agricultural enhancement36 was launched, drawing on the modelalready applied in Ethiopia, in the village of Biscioftu. The area chosen for these experimentswas close to the capital, Tirana. The plan envisaged the division of the area into two zones tobe assigned to Italian families (900 inhabitants) and a majority of Albanians (2000 inhabitants).The village was to follow a cooperative model, with all the machinery to be managed centrally.The project remained incomplete.
In 1942, only the first infrastructural arrangements had been carried out. Various organiz-ations supported the development programme. ETAL (the Libyan Tourist and Hotel Manage-ment Board) opened a branch in Albania and built various hotels in the principal cities,among them was the Hotel Dajti in Tirana. INCIS (the National Institute of Housing for StateEmployees) was also called on to make a contribution and in Tirana it designed a largecomplex inside the garden city where the state employees who were meant to be transferred
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would live. The vast Italian development programme slowed down when the war broke out in1940, so that in the 4 years during which the plan was under way, from 1939 to 1943, many ofthe projects prepared remained on paper only, while others were begun but not completed. Thearchitects at work during this period had close links with Bosio’s school: Federico Poggi,Federico Orzali, Ivo Lambertini, as well as landscape architects such as Piero Porcinai andartists like Antonio Maraini and Giuseppe Gronchi. Several Italian firms, many of which hadworked on the colonial buildings erected in East Africa, moved to Albania to carry out theprojects.37
The town plan for Tirana by Gherardo Bosio, 1939/1943
The Tirana town plan studies began immediately after Albania was annexed to Italy, even beforethe Central Office became effective, in September 1939, and were rapidly concluded in March194038 when the outline plan was published in the Official Gazette.39 The building regulationsfor Tirana were also approved in the same year and became a mandatory instrument for all con-struction activities. The elaboration of the plan continued until 1943, when Ivo Lambertini, whosucceeded G. Bosio after his death, drew up the regional plan.40 At the same time, as the planwas being drawn up, work began on the projects for public works and their implementation.Thanks to the Central Office for Building and Town Planning, deadlines were movedforward: designing and building took place at the same time, at great speed. Work on theStadium and the Casa del Fascio began as early as the summer of 1939, followed soon afterby the Deputyship Offices and the Albanian Leisure Time Institute.
The town plan for Tirana by Gherardo Bosio (Figure 7) provides some interesting clues for areflection on the strategies adopted by the regime to gain territorial control and also, on themediation forced upon the designer by the legacy he inherited from previous plans. Bosioinitially examined two possibilities: ‘(a) the creation of a new city, completely independentof the existing one, having a linear development at the foot of the hills and separated fromthe old town by a wide belt of parks and gardens; the renewal and organization of the oldTirana in the manner of a historic town; (b) the arrangement, expansion and renewal of the exist-ing city, and the creation of a new satellite town’.41 The first hypothesis consisted in establishinga new linear city expanding in a semi-circle from the Durres road, incorporating the apportion-ments already carried out in the area known as the New Tirana and, through the Elbasan road,stretching as far as the cemeteries. This meant the city could expand in areas still free of con-struction and also that new buildings of a definitely modern type could be designed with anurban layout along the lines of the new towns. The proposal was not taken up because thelegacy of the previous plans, with the centre and the north/south axis partly realized and theapportionment of lots in the zone to the south already largely carried out, required a strategyof intense negotiations.
The second solution, the one adopted, followed the zoning of the 1929 plan but completelyrevised its approach, even though it gave up the sharp contrast between the existing city and thenew one. Compared with the first one, it was certainly a more realistic solution and less subjectto conflicts because of private and public interests that had already been established and wouldhave been difficult to settle in a new hypothesis. Bosio’s plan developed the idea of a mono-centric town with a radial urban layout and a grid of concentric rings in which a rigorous, func-tionalist approach prevailed. For Tirana, Bosio proposed the same principles he had already
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tested in town plans in East Africa,42 in the lowland settlements, where he envisaged a zonedconcentric layout gathered around the acropolis in which ‘government buildings, element ofconquest and dominion, formed the urban hierarchy’.43 The difference lay in the fact that inTirana, the central nucleus, around which building activity was to be concentrated, was theone inherited from and already built by Florestano di Fausto in 1929. Bosio’s negativeopinion of the previous plan and buildings is predictable because neither the plan nor the build-ings corresponded to the concept of town planning and architecture that resulted in the equation:straight line/new order which identified the true expression of Fascism in terms of geometry,transparency and clarity.
The monumental city imagined by Brasini could not be accepted by Bosio and the inheritedurban structures had to be reassessed in the context of a different vision. The 4.5 km long axiswas scaled down, almost halved, and the centre of political life was moved from the ParliamentSquare southwards towards the long avenue, where it ended in the Assembly Square.
Figure 7. Master plan 1939, Gherardo Bosio (Archivio Tecnico delle Costruzioni di Tirana).
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Essentially, Bosio chose to effect a strong polarization of the urban hierarchies concentratingthose representing the regime along the boulevard, in the stretch beyond the river Lana,called Empire Avenue, where the new residential districts were to be built. The axis’ terminal,instead of the presidential palace, was the Assembly Square, dominated by the Casa del Fascio,also set on a high base and visible along the entire avenue. A detailed plan was drawn up withbuilding regulations44 determining the architecture and materials of the facades and the avenue’scharacteristics. The Central Office produced several studies, including a model of the Skander-berg Square and perspectives of the new centre and of the Assembly Square. Empire Avenuetook on a chiefly public and, at the same time, a political character with a strong metaphoricalappeal, the intention being to exalt the values of heroic ethics. In fact, the avenue was envisagedas lined with representational buildings and military headquarters (the Troop Headquarters, theAir Force Headquarters, the Forestry Corps Headquarters and the OPA offices). The DeputyshipOffices and the INFAIL (Fascist National Institute for Labour Accident Insurance) premiseswere located around midway. Besides the Casa del Fascio, in the Assembly Square werelocated the Albanian Leisure Time Institution, the Albanian Fascist Youth Institute and theStadium (Figure 8).
The Assembly Square was designed as a cavea, with sites for major buildings along the per-imeter on all sides. The monumental effect was further enhanced by the green background of thehill, which isolated the Casa del Fascio from the other buildings. Numerous sculpture groups,celebrating the spirit of ancient Rome were to adorn the buildings: eagles, an allegory oflabour, heroes of ancient Rome, the march of legionaries and aviators, an equestrian group repre-senting the battle of Farsalo won by Caesar. The stadium was placed to the east of the axis toform yet another square connected by a portico located between the two wings of the FascistYouth Organization building to the Assembly Square, thus not only enabling the passage ofpersons but also establishing a visual link between the two urban structures and bringing theentrance to the stadium in the foreground. The avenue was designed as a five carriagewayroad allowing for lateral parking and wide tree-lined pavements where people could promenade.The building regulations, drawn up to ensure a basic architectural uniformity, established theoverall character and architectural style of the buildings and the quality of free areas. With
Figure 8. Design for the Assembly Square, Gherardo Bosio (Archivio Tecnico delle Costruzioni diTirana).
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regard to the dimensions of the facades,45 they were required to observe a compositional moduleof 400 m of interaxis, and the free space between buildings had to be occupied by gardensplanted with trees. The buildings were envisaged as being quite low, three storeys at themost, with the eaves lines at a height of 1700 m. Stone was the prescribed material of thefacades46 as a further guarantee of architectural harmony. The link between Empire Avenueand the new districts was solved by two parallel avenues running along both sides, thus allowingan alternative to the principle axis. The residential buildings were to have been built on thesefronts. Work began as early as 1939, but unfortunately, due to the fact that the plan onlyremained in force for a few years, the military headquarter buildings were never built, whilethe ones structuring the square were almost entirely completed.
Bosio’s approach, that was his desire to break with the pre-existing Italian buildings, wasespecially evident in the plan for the Square of Ministries, Skanderberg Square, whose com-pletion became the occasion for creating a new square that had nothing to do with the previousone. The aim was not to achieve unity of space but rather a separation between the buildingsdesigned by Florestano di Fausto and the new ones, as if they were separate entities. Theunfinished square was not completed in its elliptical form, which was ruled out, and the existingbasin was filled in by a park consisting of a double row of trees on the two sides so as to trans-form the square into an extension of the boulevard southwards and make it become the link withthe new urban structure. A long rectangle was developed in a direction east-west, marked bybuildings with long porticoes starting from the facade of the Baskija building and ending inthe semi-circular bazaar square. The National Bank of Albania, with its inviting curvedfacade, was countered on the other side by the premises of a new bank.
To make the ensemble more harmonious, it was decided to extend Mussolini Avenue east-wards so that it continued beyond Skanderberg Square, towards the new bazaar square. Insteadof the old square blocks with courtyards, which were envisaged and a portico along all thesides whose initial part, set back with regard to the line of the Et’hem Bey Mosque, plays arole in distinguishing and defining the new area. The town hall too, already built to thedesign of Florestano di Fausto, was replaced by a larger square building with a central court-yard and portico overlooking the square, which also had the role of marking the close of bou-levard Zogu I. Thus the square was used to divide the long axis so as to transform theboulevard Zogu I to the north, already built as a plain avenue with the same characteristicsas the ones from Durres. The carriageway was reduced, placing a double row of trees in themiddle of the road and positioning a square, in the role of terminal and junction with thering road, which was to have been overlooked by the Guards’ Barracks.47 The General PostOffice Square, overlooked by the theatre, was south of the Skanderberg Square. In the townplan drawings dated 1943, this building was replaced by the Basilica. The plans for thecentre, unlike those for the avenue, were never implemented and, in fact, planning remainedat the level of a detailed plan.
In all, the plan was drawn up for 130,000 inhabitants with a density of 130 inhabitants perhectare (Figure 9).
Mostly these were to be housed across a wide urban area consisting of low houses, a ration-ally organized garden city within a regular grid. The rules applied to the new town were alsofollowed when intervening in the existing city through the superimposition of buildings, justify-ing the operations for reasons of hygiene and propriety (the creation of a suitable network ofroads and sewers). This approach, partly due to the existence of previous plans, was explained
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with the principle of ‘environmentalism’, since Tirana was a green, low-density town with anurban fabric of single-family houses with vegetable gardens. The general principle, followedby the regime’s town plans in the colonies, was that architecture and town planning shouldbe ‘superimposed’ on any pre-existing local form and envisage a ‘very definite separation’48
between the colonizers’ districts and those inhabited by the colonized, as a concrete expressionof control and dominion. Architecture and town planning, in the hands of the regime, rep-resented a tangible and unmistakable tool for indicating hierarchies and the control over localpopulation. In keeping with this principle, the issue of ‘environmentalism’ was raised, con-sidered as ‘an element of harmony and equilibrium’.49 A propos of this subject, Carlo EmilioRava wrote in 1936 that: ‘colonial architecture must signify imperial achievement, but alsothe quest for “environmentalism”, the merging of an elaborate modernity with a perceptiveand scrupulous understanding of the needs due to climate, latitude, colour’.50 In the townplan report, the designers maintained that ‘the old centre is entirely preserved so as not tolose the vestiges of the Muslim town’, but in point of fact, the policy that was carried out,based on thinning out, opening and creating road links, actually erased and deeply modifiedthe evidence of the previous historical urban fabric with its typical cul de sac streets endingin courtyards, where family life was carried out.
Figure 9. Master plan 1939/1943, Gherardo Bosio (Archivio Tecnico delle Costruzioni di Tirana).
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Contrary to the council decree, separate districts for natives and colonizers were not createdwithin the city centre. Instead, the river Lana, which runs through the town from east to west,effected a natural separation between the existing town (inhabited by Albanians) and the newtown (where the Italians were to live). On the other hand, the classic division into exclusiveneighbourhoods, middle class and working class districts and commercial areas was realized.The division was considered a mere suggestion, not a programmatic command with bindingrules. Once the special zones had been assigned (industries and working class districts, barracks,hospitals etc.) the zoning of the remaining residential and commercial areas was considered ‘abroad indication to be applied with the maximum elasticity . . .’.51 The elegant houses werelocated on the hills of Elbasan, the middle-class residences on the slopes west and east of thecity and finally the working-class neighbourhoods were assigned to an area to the west, in aplain on the fringe of the area set aside for the airport and near the industrial zones, whichwere located along the road to Durres and Shkodra. Special attention was reserved for thewhite-collar workers’ district, located to the southwest. Here the building typology waschanged to a multi-family six-storey housing. This was the district whose construction wasentrusted to INCIS in 1942, but was never carried out due to the plan’s short duration.
A new town was envisaged on the hills of Paskugan, separated from the principal city by agreen park along the banks of the river. The idea of the linear city developed in the first hypoth-esis was thus in part taken up by the foundation of this small satellite city, structured like agarden city of 50,000 inhabitants: ‘. . . it was thought to provide, in addition to the townplan’s urban zone of expansion, a suburban zone developed around the garden city, . . . immedi-ately north of the river Tirana’.52 This was probably the new town that Bosio would have wantedto build had he not been forced to accept the legacy of the previous plans. Another smaller settle-ment with independent characteristics, intended for the working classes, was designed to theeast. Its form was to have been that of a spiral with extensive green areas, which almostseems to suggest an implosion of the linear city.
With regard to infrastructures: the boulevard was given the role of a transversal link, whilethe pre-existing consular roads leading from Durres, Vlore, Elbasan and Dibra and merging atthe entrance of the city were instead channelled into a ring road in order to reduce the amount oftraffic passing through the town. The consular roads entered into town in the form of urbanavenues with a wide road section and trees on both sides. Within the town other urban structuresarranged in concentric circles at regular intervals led to the external ring road forming a continu-ous urban grid. The plan also provided the town with an airport located eastwards, along the roadto Durres, while the railway and the central station were to have been located to the southeast,beyond the ring road, but in the same quadrant as the new urban districts.
The map of Tirana of 1943 and what achieved over the next decade
In 1943, the Italians were forced to leave Albania. All work was suspended. A map of the townby Ferdinando Poggi dated 1943 (Figure 10) indicates exactly the situation of the buildings andprojects. By comparing it with a plan of the city dated 1953, we can verify the substance andnature of the urban structures and buildings realized. The completion of the SkanderbergSquare and the layout of Avenue Vittorio Emanuele III (formerly Avenue Zog I, that is thenorthern axis) with the urban ring were not realized and it emerges that the architectural projectshad not even been approved. Skanderberg Square remained just the way Zog I left it in 1939
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(Figure 11).53 The old bazaar still existed in 1953. Under Fascist rule, work was concentratedabove all on Empire Avenue, considered a priority. The buildings overlooking AssemblySquare were almost entirely completed: the Casa del Fascio (now the premises of the TiranaPolytechnic), the Albanian Fascist Youth Institute (currently the seat of the University), theAlbanian Leisure Time Institution (now the Opera House). The Stadium was partially con-structed, the entrance was built and the track area was laid out. The Deputyship offices andthe Hotel Dajti were erected along Empire Avenue, while only the foundations of theINFAIL building were laid.54
When the regime fell, Empire Avenue had the aspect of a great green boulevard withoutbuildings flanking it and the Casa del Fascio in evidence at the end. Of the new residentialdistricts in the southern zone, in new Tirana, some groups of houses reserved for officerswere built. The street network in this area was almost completely laid out, but within itonly a few small villas were erected here and there. Work on the river Lana, which beganduring the first period, was continued and the river bed was extended to the east and west.With regard to the other infrastructures, the external ring road was not realized, whereas
Figure 10. Plan of Tirana 1940–1943 (Archivio Tecnico delle Costruzioni di Tirana).
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transversal roads were built inside the town centre linking the avenues of the western zone, theAvenue Mussolini, with the Avenue Prince of Piedmont and the latter with the Avenue VittorioEmanuele III.
Conclusion
Tirana was not a city founded by the Italians like the colonial towns in Italian East Africa, as itwould seem at the first glance. On the contrary, despite the deep impression left by Italian inter-vention starting from 1923, the city has a strongly stratified fabric in which substantial traces ofthe past persist contributing to its specific identity. The plans for its transformation into a capitalcity were superimposed on the pre-existing city and left a deep impression reflected by the newdirection of expansion, but did not cancel the founding elements of its urban structure. ArmandoBrasini’s project (1924/1925) marked the start of the transformation. A boulevard runningthrough the whole city with a strong landscape value, peremptorily cut into the urban fabric
Figure 11. I.G.M. Tirana 1937 (Archivio Tecnico delle Costruzioni di Tirana).
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of the old Islamic town and at the same time permitted the occupation of areas free of buildings,thus preserving the existing structure and creating new complexity. The institutional Square ofMinistries (now Skanderberg Square), designed by Florestano di Fausto, was planned beside theold mosque in a modern version of its principles. Then came the plan by Gherardo Bosio, whoredesigned in an autarchic vein the imprint already created in the previous period, and by doingso actually continuing the slow process of appropriation and re-signification, adjustment andchange of the town, to adapt it to the new society.
The interventions to turn Tirana into a capital city have created stratification, overlappingimprints enriching the town and reinforcing its identity, revealing their power even thoughunfinished, suspended, awaiting a definition that has yet to take shape today.
Notes on contributorPatrizia Capolino is an architect, holding a PhD on ‘Architectural Composition and Theory of Architec-ture’ from the University of Rome La Sapienza. Since 2000, she is professor by contract of ‘Architecturaland Urban Composition’ in the Faculty of Architecture Ludovico Quaroni of the University of Rome LaSapienza. She is a member of the group ‘Osservatorio sul moderno a Roma’ of the Department of Archi-tecture. In 2005, she won a NATO-CNR scholarship and she undertook research on modern architecturein Tirana (Albania). Her publications regard mainly modern architecture and town planning, among whichLa Guida dell’architettura moderna di Tirana: 1923–1943 (Rome 2010).
Notes1. Archive research was carried out in connection with studies for a Nato-CNR Senior Fellowships Pro-
gramme grant in 2005. Documents collected and located in the Technical Archives for Constructionof Tirana, though neatly arranged in files, were yet to be classified in the archives in 2005.
2. G. Caudo, ‘Metropoli incoerente’, Specchio + 04 (2008): 157.3. The Technical Archives for Construction of Tirana contain various important drawings of the city.
The oldest, dated 1916, on a scale of 1:5000, was drawn by a military unit expressly appointed forthis purpose under the supervision of the k. u. k. Kriegsvermessu, the Imperial Geographical Instituteof Vienna. In 1917, the map was drawn again to indicate the principal constructions. The survey wasdrawn again by Skender Frasheri in 1921 on a scale of 1:3.300.
4. ‘The Islamic city. One of its distinctive features was the presence of the place of worship, which entersthe town for good. [. . .] The mosque as a religious building probably dates back to a relatively laterperiod, since it represents the house of the prophet in Medina, where he preached the new religionof the Arabs to the faithful: however, it was probably erected as an imitation of Christian andJewish places of worship first in the Christian churches themselves, which were commandeered anddivided into half, assigned to two different groups of worshippers . . . The entry of the Great Mosqueor Friday Mosque into the city was neither fortuitous nor merely a cultural imitation, nor a symbolicevent of an ethical and religious nature. The mosque occupied a specific location – it was generallybuilt and rebuilt on the same site as previous places of worship, in the centre of the town, next tothe prince’s castle-palace, not far from the souk, the market and the throbbing heart of the city’seconomic activities. Around this group of public buildings – the Friday Mosque, the prince’s castle-palace, the souk, which undoubtedly represent in topographic and architectural terms the importanceof the new Islamic city as an institutional reality in the context of the urban community – lie the resi-dential districts of noble families and popular working-class neighbourhoods, while the suburbs areusually inhabited by merchants – with caravanserai, wells and cisterns to supply caravans with awater – and by craftsmen’. Valeria Fiorani Piacentini, La citta islamica, in Pietro Rossi, Modelli dicitta. Strutture e funzioni politiche (Turin, 1987). Also see: Jasenka Gudeli on Sarajevo in ‘CITTA’e STORIA’ n8 1 (2006) and Luda Klusakova, The Road to Constantinopole.
5. The remains of a mosaic floor dating from the II–III century BC were found in the centre of Tiranain 1970.
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6. Decio Cinti, Tirana, Le capitali d’Europa illustrate (Milan: Sonzogno, 1930), 729–32.7. Ibid.8. The independence of Albania was declared on 28 November 1912 in Vlora by a National Assembly
consisting of 83 delegates headed by Ismail Kemal Bey. The treaty of Bucharest signed on 10 August1913 endorsed this declaration. On 10 April 1914, the international Commission delegated the Con-ference of Ambassadors, convened and headed by Sir Edward Grey to whom Ismail Kemal Bey hadhanded over his powers, to approve the Statute and proclaim the Kingdom of Albania, guaranteed bythe six Great Powers. Prince Wilhelm zu Weid was appointed to the throne. On 3 September 1915,Prince Weid was forced to flee from Albania, never to return. Subsequently, various nations – Italy,Serbia and Greece – occupied Albania. In 1920, the Albanian National Assembly met at Lushnje tostate the intention of re-establishing national unity and finally on 20 January 1920, the AlbanianConstituent Assembly declared the birth of the First Republic.
9. In 1928, the Constituent Assembly headed by Pandeli Evangeli proclaimed the fall of the Republicand the birth of the Monarchy. The crown was offered to Zogu who took the title of Zogu I, King ofAlbania.
10. The proclamation of Gjirokaster was signed by General Ferrero.11. As a consequence of this policy, the Italian minister P. Aloisi and the Albania Foreign Minister Hysen
Bey Vrioni signed the Pact of Friendship in Tirana on 27 November 1926, according to whichAlbania named Italy its partner of preference: ‘the two countries undertake not to conclude withother Powers any political or military agreements prejudicial to the interests of the other Party’. Ayear later (22 November 1927), the two countries signed another alliance pact in Tirana. Theprocess was consolidated by the establishment in 1928 of the National Bank of Albania, with Italyas the major shareholder, Albanian, Yugoslavian, Belgian and Swiss shares and the gold franc as unit.
12. On 29 May 1925 the SVEA and the Albanian government signed an agreement ratified by theAlbanian Parliament and published in the Albanian Official Gazette (Fletorja Zyrtare) no. 36 of 12July 1925 and no. 40 of 31 July 1925.
13. Albania was made up of a constellation of badly linked cities due to an underdeveloped infrastructuralsystem, consisting of wooden bridges, long dirty roads in bad condition and sea ports lacking freightunloading facilities. To quote a report by the SVEA in 1925 published in Un decennio di vita dellaSVEA, La libreria dello Stato, Rome 1936, p. 19: ‘The lack of safe harbours on the Albanian coastmade it difficult for goods to be unloaded and passengers to disembark, and even impossible duringthe numerous days of bad weather; the absence of bridges on the principal Albanian rivers, similarto torrents, and the condition of the roads made it impossible to guarantee regular contact betweenthe various parts of Albania, so that the country was actually divided up into distinctly separate zones’.
14. Op.cit, Un decennio di vita della SVEA.15. The sea port of Durres was designed by Luigi Luiggi of the Civil Engineering Corps, succeeded by
Tito Consigli.16. The firms were Italian (69.6%), Albanian (21.8%) and foreign (5.1%). The principal among these
were: F.lli ingg. A.M. Ragazzi, M. Sacco, Wagner and Biro, Beca and Cassina, H. Neviri andBylla, Staccioli, Dan Hassani Sefer Maliq, engineer Pilika, Kristaq Gjyuli, Krahu, SocietaAnsaldo, F.lli Desideri, Societa S.I.T.A., Scagnetti, Mario Rocco and Xh. Kadesha, Sulco Bushati.Op. cit Un decennio di vita della SVEA.
17. Ahmet Zogu was born in Bergajet on 8 October 1895 and came to power as early as 1920, thoughwith changing fortunes.
18. They consist of perspective drawings in the Archives of San Luca in Rome. A monograph edited byMario Pisani has also been published (Architetture di Armando Brasini (Rome: Officina Edizioni,1996)).
19. Paolo Orano, Urbe Massima: l’architettura e la decorazione di Armando Brasini (Rome: A. F.Formiggini, 1916).
20. Quotation of Armando Brasini from the text by M. Pisani, Architetture di Armando Brasini (Rome:Officina Edizioni, 1996), 24–5 and note 7.
21. Technical Archives for Construction of Tirana was formed, the graphic material was separated fromthe written documents and preserved in the Central Archives. In 2005 most of this material was not
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available for consultation. This is the reason for the scarcity of information regarding the structure ofthe offices active in Tirana and the role of the plans’ designers.
22. The drawings in the Tirana Archives consist in: a general planimetry of the project and a series ofplants and prospects of the various buildings on a scale of 1:100.
23. B. Aliaj, K. Lulo, and G. Myftiu, ‘From independence to the world wars (1920–1938)’, in Tirana theChallenge of Urban Development (Tirana: Sloalba, 2003): 27–51.
24. Besides the plan of the residential area, W. Kohler designed various projects for Tirana, including theone of the Civil Hospital and the royal villa, working with various Italian firms. Owing to the scarcityof written documents in the Albanian archives W. Kohler’s role in designing the plan for Tirana is notclear, nor do we know who appointed him.
25. The designers of New Dehli, Swinton, Lutyens and Baker draw on the models of Versailles andWashington and ‘the representational centre is organised around a Mallo f the same size, 3 kilometres,oriented almost exactly from east to west’, in L. Benevolo, La cattura dell’infinito (Bari: Laterza,1991), 98.
26. The SVEA was active during the decade from 1925 to 1935 and was succeeded by the SOFINES in1936.
27. On 8 March 1939 King Zog I asked Italy to draw up a new pact between the nations and on 20 Marchhe requested that Italian troops be sent. Mussolini refused his request and on 5 April the authorities ofthe Italian Legation and Council in Albania ordered the Italians to leave the country. Only civil ser-vants and officers of the diplomatic service stayed on in Tirana. On 7 April 1939, Italian troopsarrived in Albania, landing at the same time in Durres, Vlora, Santi Quaranta (now Porto Edda)and S.Giovanni di Medua. King Zog I, defenceless, was forced to flee Albania for Greece. On 8April at 9.30 Itlian troops entered Tirana. On 12 April 1939, the Constituent Assembly of thedelegates of all ten Albanian provinces was convened in Tirana; in the course of the meeting, Zogwas deposed and the crown of Albania was offered, in the form of a personal union, to the Kingof Italy and Emperor of Ethiopia Vittorio Emaneule III. On 14 April, the Italian Council of Ministerssanctioned the acceptance of the new title of the King of Italy and ruled that it would be represented inAlbania by a General Deputy resident in Tirana. On 22 April Il 22 aprile fu nominato FrancescoIacomoni di San Savino was appointed. The Fascist Party was founded in Tirana on 23 April1939 in the presence of Achille Starace, Secretary of the Italian Fascist Party.
28. On 14 September 1943, the Albanian Regency Council proclaimed its independence from Italy underthe protection of Germany.
29. Deputyship Decree dated 12 October 1939 XVII in Mbretnija Shqiptare Fleorja Zyrtare Tirana,Establishment of the Central Building and Town Planning Office; tax breaks for new or restoredbuildings, no. 122. The decree is signed by the Deputy Francesco Jacomoni di Sansavino, Sh.Verlaci, F. Anzillotti, M. Bushati.
30. Gherardo Bosio was assisted by Giuseppe Paladini who took over in 1941 after his untimely death,and subsequently by Leone Carmignani and. Ferdinando Poggi. The latter continued in office untilthe Central Building and Town Planning Office became subject to the Albanian Ministry of PublicWorks in 1942.
31. C. Cresti, Gherardo Bosio architetto fiorentino 1903–1941 (Florence: A. Pontecorboli, 1996).32. Regulations of the Albanian Building and Town Planning Office and Central Commission, Tirana
1940 XVIII, in Mbretnija Shqiptare Fleorja Zyrtare, no. 27.33. Archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Albanian Building and Town Planning Central, Report
on the work carried out by the Office for Town Plan Studies, 21 April 1940 XVIII.34. Officially, the office began to function after the Deputyship Decree on 12 October 1939, though it was
set up some months earlier.35. L. Nuti, ‘La citta nuova nella cultura urbanistica e architettonica del fascismo’, Metodo 17 (2001).36. G. Gresleri, ‘La via dell’est: da Tirana a Lubiana’, in Architettura Italiana d’oltremare 1870–1940
(Florence: Marsilio, 1994).37. Le principal firms were: Imprese Cidonio, S.A. Mediterranea Albania, Imprese Aureli, Imprese Vaselli,
S.A. Marinucci, Impresa Simoncini, S.A. Ferrobeton, Impresa Federici, Societa Italiana CostruzioniEdilizia e Lavori Pubblici, Ditta Stacciali, Imprese Moscati. Op.cit. Un decennio di vita della SVEA.
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38. The outline plan is published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale no. 40 dated 29 March 1940, approved by lawno. 71 of 7 March 1940.
39. The final plan was concluded in January 1943, as testified by the report signed by Il piano definitivofu concluso nel gennaio del 1943, come testimonia la relazione di piano firmata da Ivo Lambertini andFerdinando Poggi as advisor.
40. M.A. Giusti, Albania architettura e citta (Florence: Maschietto, 2006).41. Ivo Lambertini and Ferdinando Poggi, Relazione di piano, Tirana 1943 (Building Archives, Tirana).42. Between 1936 and 1938, Bosio was given the task by the Italian Government of drawing up the
project of the town plans of Gondar, Dessie and Gimma in Italian East Africa (A.O.I.). Op.cit. C. Cresti.
43. G. Bosio, ‘Future citta dell’Impero’, Architettura 7 (July) (1937): 429.44. G. Bosio, Piano regolatore di Tirana, Regolamento urbanistico del viale dell’Impero, 1940, Ufficio
per l’Edilizia e l’Urbanistica (Building Archives, Tirana).45. ‘. . . continuous and unified facades of a width in proportion to the width of the road: the width of the
facades of individual buildings are established in planimetry as to be built on multiple of modularinteraxes of 4 m., a measurement allowing maximum freedom in the composition of the plans . . .harmonious buildings separated the one from the other’, extract from the ‘Town planning regulationfor Viale dell’Impero, 1940’ by Gherardo Bosio.
46. ‘Art.9 In consideration of Empire Avenue’s future monumental character, all buildings must bebuilt with the same architectural dignity and uniform stylistic features. All fascias, cornices and archi-tectural ornaments must be in stone or marble, while the level surfaces of the background can be ofplain plaster. The wainscotting of the buildings, up to a height of not less than 1.80 m. and the enclo-sure walls must also be covered with stone or marble. The use of artificial stone is allowed, but onlyfor special reasons of a static character, in the crown cornices of the buildings’. Gherardo Bosio,Relazione Regolamento urbanistico del viale dell’Impero, 1940 (Building Archives, Tirana).
47. The barracks buildings were designed but not built.48. Urbanistica no. 3 (1937): 146.49. Rassegna di architettura no. 9 (1933): 384.50. C.E. Rava, ‘Architettura coloniale’, Gli annuali dell’Africa Italiana, year II, no. 4 (1939): 401.51. Ferdinando Poggi and Ivo Lambertini, Relazione di piano, Tirana 1943 (Building Archives, Tirana).52. Ibid.53. A comparison with the 1937 plan shows that no building work took place in the area.54. The building was completed later, during the Communist regime.
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