Against or again identities? Interpreting cultures of living for new forms of housing

Historically, marginal and colonial geographic areas have been imposed how to live by a central political structure. Contemporary market has also imposed its forms of dwelling, which seems now metabolized as something that has always been there. In this paper, we argue that, focusing on the Albanian history of dwelling, considering its brusque transformations and interruptions, Albania is a paradigmatic example of this phenomena. The paper tries to follow a thread of continuity, extracting from the past and modern tradition compositional and spatial themes adaptable for contemporary living. Through history, the ottoman imperium diffused its dwelling typology along the Balkan territory generating a miniature version of its own society. Poor peasants became soon owners diffusing types of the ottoman patriarchal house with private garden. During communism, the instauration of a disciplinary regime moved many people (for the first time) from single houses to mass housing complexes, transforming private habits into collective life, whereas, in contemporary capitalistic times, in many metropolis, real estate determines dwelling types and domestic spaces. In 2000s, “informal” houses in Albania, gave for the first time to many Albanians the possibility to build their own house, albeit the lack of legal policies, this phenomenon has deeply questioned the previous collective habits. Today’s concentration of large capital to few speculators and builders, risks constraining again Albanians to live under the rules and the impositions of a new regime, capitalism. Looking at informality as a potential for the project and trying to destigmatize it, this paper tries to highlight cultural and spatial qualities from past forms of dwelling, revisiting them within new forms of living, no more generic, atopic or imposed. Traditional dwellings can still offer compositional themes of spatial flexibility and functionality (built-in furniture, external space relations, etc.) that can be interpreted for new combinations (of revisited “informal houses”), for building domestic spaces for all, against and beyond the market-free areas.