The Boulevard without a city; Tirana

The Boulevard without a city

Tirana

    

    Walking on the boulevard today, from north to south, one will face a series of buildings each competing for the loosely given attention of the onlooker. Existing in a constant state of self-denial they are bearers of Tirana’s past, positioned along the axis in no special order, the old keeping company to the young. The boulevard itself, as the buildings are as much part of it as the walls are part of a building, is a bundle of layered history which this essay aims to unravel.

In the time between Albanian's independence in 1912 until the beginning of the First World War in 1914, The country's capital had shifted from different cities throughout the region, starting in Vlore which was one of the most influential cities of the South and then to Shkoder, its equal rival in the North to finally end up in Durres closer to the center.1 The restless movements occurred due to power struggles between lords controlling these cities, which were later amplified by the many European armies occupying areas in the North, East, and South during the years of the WWI. In light of all these developments, leaders of different tribes decided to gather in January 1920 to form a High Council of regency represented by the heads of various religious communities which then agreed to relocate the government in Tirana.2Henceforth, we can easily determine the reasons behind such an unseemly choice; Tirana's central location away from any foreign threats while at the same time belonging to no powerful clans, so to not raise any conflicts of interest. It is needless to say that the city's infrastructure was incapable of satisfying the needs of a capital, consisting mainly of an Ottoman-style bazaar, a clock tower, several barracks, and four mosques (1). It was, therefore, imperative for the government to undertake action regarding the economic and urban development of Tirana.

Establishing the presidency in 1925, Ahmet Zogu sought the help of Italy, whose fascist supporters perceived Albania as a foothold in the region to execute their program of spreading the New Roman Empire.3A significant aspect of Mussolini's influence in Tirana was reflected in its urban development which for a time was split between two different architectural approaches; if the old city center should be left intact for touristic purposes or if the new city should also engulf the old nucleus in its expansion towards the empty fields. The second option was more favorable, especially after Amarildo Brasini's project was released.4

The central element of his various proposals for the city center was the North-South Boulevard which would become the connecting unit between the old city and the new. Along the boulevard were to rest all the civic and governmental buildings while its main element would be the square located at the center. Many plans were taken to consideration regarding the shape and size of the square, all having in common the desire to transform what was believed to be an Ottoman symbol into a capital city of Neoclassical Roman grandeur. In the end, Brasini's proposals of the square were considered to be excessively expensive and unrealistic and were replaced by the design of another architect, Florestano di Fausto.5 Therefore, Tirana was for the first time faced with the construction of an official urban plan resulting in the North-South axis proposed by Brasini in conjunction with Fausto's proposal of the square. The square consisted of a "funnel" shape meant to gather the traffic coming from the north and then transferring it to the new part ofthe city through the boulevard. On two sides of the "funnel" stand the many buildings of the ministries (2), their shapes simple representations of the Neoclassical government buildings in Italy. Additionally, on the upper part where the radial streets cross, the municipality of Tirana is located.

A sunken garden at the center provides some more consequence to the square, its main purpose of existence, consisting of making the buildings around it seem higher than they would appear in reality.

It is important to mention that at the time Tirana consisted of no more than 12'000 citizens and cars were extremely rare. The new plan for Tirana was the first action at trying to create a Western-like capital center whereas the actual urban development of the city was far from being compared to its European neighbors. The grand boulevard surrounded by the remnants of the old province must have been a rather absurd sight to observe. One could even compare it to Walter Benjamin's Paris Arcades, where a certain saying comes to mind; "Glass before its time, Premature iron." And there was indeed a duality to the boulevard as it would span across its axis reflecting a fake sense of control and wealth while the city kept growing around it taking no notice of lines, grids or riches.

Eventually, together with a new foreign minister, Italy introduced a new approach to its relation with Albania. Tirana was to become the place to architecturally demonstrate the glory and grace of Fascism. Up until 1939 the principal design, ruling the urban and architectural specter of Tirana, was manifested through highly ornamented buildings, while the new political approach of Italy brought forth architects aiming towards a rational architecture. The manifestation of the Fascist propagandistic buildings would be Piazza Littoria, located at the south- end of the boulevard with Palazzo Littoro (9) coronating its promenade. The Palazzo itself features aspects of Florentine palaces as well as details of the traditional Albanian Kulla (tower). Meanwhile, the city would keep growing around the boulevard, successfully ignoring the new urban plans laid out during this time, reaching a population of 100'000.

Nonetheless, Albania emerged from WWII facing devastating loses both in population and infrastructure. Such conditions created the perfect opportunity for the communist party to liberate Albania from Fascism and establish a new political regime. Following the Soviet model, the new government instigated a centralized economy, its primary goal focusing on industrialization. Considering how the previous regimes had all left their mark on the city, the Communist government was now faced with the task of managing meanings and impositions left on the existing squares and buildings. Besides changing the names of the streets, the communist leader, Enver Hoxha, gave a list of directives to his architects regarding the future planning of Tirana.6 In the midst of all this change, USSR initiated the first attempt at making a plan (1965) which tried to control the irregular growth of the city in time, without turning all its focus on the center of the capital. However, following on the socialist ideology of distributing more space to functions such as science and culture in comparison to capitalist money generating spaces, its main urban achievement was the addition of socio-cultural areas in the heart of the city.7 Not much later, the center of Tirana was modified once again with the addition of a 15 story high hotel. All of these recent developments had mostly occurred along the west-east axis as the boulevard axis north to south was mainly reserved for institutional purposes. It was, however, these institutional buildings which posed some ideological complications to the existing government as it went through the transition phase from the Italian influenced Fascism to the Soviet communist regime. Considering these buildings were the only existing infrastructure adequate for administrative purposes, it would be unwise not to use them. It is true that the past was more prominent in the center of the city but it was also easy to manipulate, considering how the previous regime ruled for a short period and only a minority of the present population lived in the city during that time. In this context, the ministerial buildings, the National Bank (3) and the stadium (10) retained their previous functions, while Palazzo Littoro was converted into the State University of Tirana. As Fowkes said, "building socialism involved changing people's mind and view of history..." (Fowkes 2002).

As history goes, in 1959, Tirana received its last gift from the Soviet Union, a Palace of Culture (12) in the city center which would house the national library as well as an opera. Being the largest building of its type, it embraces a brutal façade of simple geometry and linear lines spreading like a huge solid block whose only variation is a series of grand repeated columns taking up the front elevation. As it is usually the case with totalitarian architecture, the entrance to the building is adorned with a set of continuous stairs which add to its monumentality. So the scale of the "gift" not only changed the already existing relationship between the other buildings in the center but it introduced a different kind of lifestyle from that known to the people. It was no longer the ottoman bazaar flanked by the mosque and the clock tower that dominated the background of everyday life. A cultural giant suggested a new life supported by the pillars of art and science. It was so, perfectly timed that during the '70s, when Albania declared itself the first atheist country, the regime began to build the main hotel (13) in the center of the city which required the demolishing of two older churches. In 1976 followed a new National Historical Museum (14) adorned with a large "monument of freedom" mosaic at its center which was to be one of the first purely Albanian architectural creations of its size until that very moment. Being the byproduct of a heavily indoctrinated architecture, the museum’s façade is dominated by the above mentioned mosaic which depicts the history of Albania towards independence represented through the communist woman situated at the center of the picture. Despite its propagandistic undertone, the museum is anything but boring. Its linear shape beautifully fragmented by a set of vertical windows on both sides of the mosaic which rests atop another set of thin linear columns. In the center of its square-ish shape resides an interior courtyard flanked by 8 halls each designed in a different architectural style making the museum a piece of art in itself.

During the transition from communism to democracy, a monumental museum (17) was built further north down the boulevard dedicated to Enver Hoxha, resulting in another manifestation of modern Albanian architecture along the boulevard. Not long after the fall of the regime in 1991, a new approach towards public property threatened to profoundly alter the imposingly asynchronous façade of the boulevard. What was once revered as a symbol of power turned into a victim of anarchistic vandalism. It was, however, Enver Hoxha's museum which suffered the most destruction and stands to this day, decaying along the boulevard as one of the many reminders of Tirana's past history.

As for its future, there is once again a new master plan regarding the urban development of the city, trying to re-conceptualize the "Skenderbej" square as many other political forces have done while integrating a series of towers in the center to seek and bestow on it a more European feeling.

It appears that this transient attempts at turning cultural identity into a project to be made anew, in this case, European, have in themselves accomplished an ongoing timeless milestone which is, regardless, so rather fond of capturing episodes in time along its north-south axis. Owing to this mosaic of agendas and political conditions it appears that the boulevard has taken a life of its own, it has become an urban edifice which, with its individuality controls the foreground, while following the path of the ever-existing duality the city continues to grow on the background. Where capitals become instruments in a country's struggle to an identification, here it is rather the boulevard that has its own history of purpose and alteration, a range of functions independent from form and contained over time, values of spirituality and memory. In this line of thought, it is Aldo Rossi's description of the edifice that` draws nearer to the isolated condition of the boulevard which played the role of the capital while there was no city, to later observe it expanding all around it with no regard of its presence thus conditioning it to the existence of a looking glass "as a great comprehensive representation of the human condition".

                                                                        One of the drawings of Armando Brasini in 1926 of Tirana's Boulevard

 

Footnotes

 

¹              Swire, Albania; The Rise of a Kingdom, 134

²              Sami Frasheri, Shqiperia; C’ka qene, c’eshte e c’do te behet

³              Bernd Jurgen Fischer, King Zog and the struggle for stability in Albania, 21

⁴              Mathew Alderman, The modern baroque of Armando Brasini

⁵              Miho, Shqiperia, veshtrim urbanistik 1912-1944

⁶              Hoxha, Enver. 1968. Vepra.

⁷              F. Aliahmeti, Kryeqyteti yne, Tirana dje, sot dhe neser

 

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