Prishtina and Tirana - a look back at our field trip

Cities are in a constant state of transformation, which manifests itself in urban and open space structures. This transformation is particularly visible in those cities that are characterized by crises and political upheavals. Prishtina and Tirana are two such cities that have undergone enormous change since the end of the 1990s. On our one-week field trip in October 2023, we were able to get to know these two exciting cities and the coastal town of Durrës and form our own impressions.

Prishtina is characterized by socialist urban development and a turbo-urbanism that took place after the war in 1999. Informal building structures still pose enormous challenges for the city today - making the debate about the potential of qualified public spaces and the city's architectural heritage all the more important.

Many historical layers can be seen in Tirana: from mosques from the Ottoman period, fascist architecture from the time of the Italian occupation and apartment blocks, bunkers and monumental buildings from the communist dictatorship. Today, Tirana is a vibrant metropolis that is growing rapidly and whose cityscape is increasingly characterized by international star architecture - a fact that is not uncontroversial in the local architecture and planning debate.