DESIGN STUDIO TIRANA EXPRESS
With the death of Enver Hoxha in 1985 and the final break down of the communism few years later, mass-emigration to Greece, Italy and other European countries started. Analogue, many Albanian Citizens moved to Tirana, the capital of Albania. Since that time the number of inhabitants of Tirana has more than doubled. Its history is displayed in the city fabric: Oriental ornaments, Italian influences, communistic concrete blocks, squatters, slums and high rise buildings, nightclub and mansion districts, sprawl and turbo-capitalism.
The design project wants to investigate the Albanian metropolis, which has been almost unknown for Western architects and which faces a dramatic transformation. The design project explores those transformations and seeks to interpret the particularity of the southeastern capital with targeted intervention.
In cooperation with the POLIS-University of Tirana, we are traveling to Tirana at the end of April. Within a 10-day workshop together with the Albanian students, we will consider and investigate the city center and its distinctiveness.
In a final step we will develop architectural concepts and strategies in different scales on different sites.
DESIGN STUDIO TIRANA EXPRESS