Dino, B; Griffiths, S; Karimi, K; (2016) Autocratic planning systems challenged by unregulated urbanisation: Urban transformation in post-socialist Tirana, Albania. In: Proceedings of the 2016 International PUARL Conference. Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory: University of San Francisco, CA, USA.

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Abstract

This paper explores Tirana’s growth as a process of urban block formation across two starkly differentiated ideological periods: the socialist (1945-1991) and the post-socialist (1992-present). It examines the effects of this ideological shift on Tirana’s urban development presented as an informal morphogenetic process of block deconstruction; a process with major implications for pedestrian and vehicular circulation, building accessibility, land use, land parcelling and building form. The evolution of Tirana’s block layout is explored through three neighbourhood case studies comprising blocks arranged according to Soviet planning models. These were originally formed as semi-perimeter or free standing residential blocks with large public open spaces enclosed within or around the block. Tirana’s growth has been dramatically shaped by the sudden shift in the ruling ideology and capacity of planning authorities, leading to almost a tripling of the capital’s population in less than a decade, through the systematic appropriation of open space by newcomers in need of somewhere to live, local opportunists and speculative developers. The paper uses the capital city as a case study to comment on the morphological dimension of social change in post-socialist Albania and the way in which ‘planned ’and ‘unplanned’ urban environments have contributed to the emergence of distinctive modes of urban life.

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