Author:Dr. Doriana MUSAJ
Affiliation: POLIS University
Abstract
Tirana center was designed and used by all governments during most of its lifetime mainly as a political instrument. After decades of central controlled urbanism, the fell of the communist re- gime was accompanied with massive development mostly illegal and informal that spread all over the urban area. In 2000, when the aggressiveness of the constructions posed danger to the historic urban environment of the center of the city, the Ministry of Culture requested the designation of the Boulevard of Tirana and its surroundings as a ‘Cultural Historical Architectural Ensemble’. Since then, the borders of the zone that defined the ensemble reshaped several times. Due to consecutive decisions the Ensemble lost 53% of its area. This paper uses a comparative analysis of the cartographic documents that accompany the governmental decisions on the ensemble while cataloging the cultural monuments which transformed, reshaped or demolished due to these de- cisions. The research concludes that the legal ‘border’ instrument used to protect the ensemble is easily transformable into a political instrument which in the case of Tirana, resulted beside the loss of heritage also in the transformation and shift of the urban common.
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