DP
Dorina Pllumbi
11 records found
1
Kamza and Tirana
A Travel Captured in Correspondence. The Planned, the Unplanned, and Everything in Between
The text offers a glimpse into the conversation between two of the three organizers behind the training school titled ‘The Planned, the Unplanned, and Everything in Between’ held in Tirana and Kamza in March 2023. Three months before the training school, the two correspondents, W
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Urban Façades, Political Shades
Tirana’s Nationalistic Turn in Architecture and its Subtexts
This article explores the use of nationalistic narratives in architecture in the Albanian urban landscape, focusing more on Tirana as a reflection of shifting power dynamics, ideology, and national identity across different political regimes. From the early 20th century, through
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Delft
Views on Delft
Around 1661, Johannes Vermeer painted what has become one of the most famous city views: the View of Delft. The city of Delft is depicted from across the water of the River Schie. We see the city as a collection of brick buildings with lower and higher towers, peaking into the sk
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Training school report: Tirana and Kamza
The planned, the unplanned, and everything in between
The training school The planned, the unplanned, and everything in between was held in the cities of Tirana and Kamza, as a fieldwork event of the COST Action Writing Urban Places on March 24, 30-31 2023. As the title suggests, the aim of this training school was to understand mor
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A Piece of Land to Start from Scratch
Co-creating Kamza from Below
During five decades of totalitarian state-socialism in Albania, the movement of the population was extremely limited and centrally controlled. Anarchic times followed the fall of the regime in 1991, and the state weakened to the point of losing control over the territory. This tr
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Kombinat
The Unseen and Their Architectural Oddkins
Architectural researcher Dorina Pllumbi explores the appropriation of an ex-industrial area of Albania for dwelling purposes. She points out the need for the architectural discipline to learn from the unconventional process of transformation of these realities by their new inhabi
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Commoning as a Material Engagement of Resistance
The Struggle to Save the Albanian National Theater
This chapter discusses the struggles of commoning as a material engagement in Tirana, the capital of Albania, as it transitions from a totalitarian state socialist regime to a currently consolidating neoliberal one. It reflects upon the field of relations generated during the col
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Adopted as a playscape, Tirana’s Pyramid should not be cleansed of its multi-layered, complex memories@en
Observing the Architectural Stigma of the Ugliness
The Cases of Albania and Galicia
Shëmti and feísmo are the two names given respectively in the Albanian and Galician languages to stigmatize this unruly built environment: It is considered a material expression of both constructed and internalized myth of being the underdeveloped peoples in the European peripher
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Urban Commoning and Architectural Situated Knowledge
The Architects’ Role in the Transformation of the NDSM Ship Wharf, Amsterdam
This article discusses the collaborative processes behind the redevelopment of the Dutch state heritage ship wharf NDSM in Amsterdam as a case of urban commoning that took place around the year 2000 – before the term became commonly used in urban studies. It explores how the form
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