NEW BAZZAR AND ''AVNI RUSTEMI '' SQUARE TIRANA/ ALBANIA

In order to love a place, first you must know it
The revitalization project of the New Bazaar aspires to educate professional ethics and active social conscience as well as to promote awareness of cultural collective memory. It expresses a need for a society that cultivates culture, civilization, and the desire for a beautiful life.
At the time of the project’s start, the delay of an institutional citywide urban strategy was leading to the destruction of the urban tissue, up to the point of losing the city’s identity. The project introduced a modern vision of the city that included all eras; knowing that the city can never be entirely new. The city must be conceptualized as a representation of a historical conversation, which excludes all previous urban craziness, because not every new thing is necessarily positive and not all modern innovations are always progress.
At the beginning of the revitalization project, the site was under wild erosion conditions, characterized by the confiscation of public property, the ghettoization of residential areas, the extinction of historical values and by aesthetic degradation. The intervention went through a multi-dimensional dialogue, much more complex than a single investment in an urban context. The two-year project posed many challenges, including:
1. Remodeling a cohabitation and integrated architectonic space;
2. Integrating historical Tirana into the modern city;
3. Creating a mosaic of constructions of different scale and languages;
4. Ensuring the smooth functioning of a place ready to welcome thousands of citizens per day;
5. Making a space for memory and feeling for a city that is as modern to see as comfortable to live in;
7. Ensuring a service area that is simultaneously a walking experience and a meeting place after work.
Since its inception, this intervention was developed through dialogue between:
The Atelier4 team, the local inhabitants and the merchants;
The Atelier4 team and the investor, the Albanian American Development Fund;
The Atelier4 team and the Municipality of Tirana;
The Atelier4 team and the Ministry of Culture (Institute of the Monuments of Culture).
The multidimensional dialogue of the investment was between the present and the past, a dialogue between Tirana’s most traditional streets, a dialogue between businesses and citizens, and much more.
The square of the Bazaar was used as a communication device. Covered in terracotta tiles, it evokes the feeling of a journey into the old neighborhoods of Tirana. The treatment of the floor as a wooden parquet welcomes visitors inside the modern Bazaar house. The brilliant idea to use the traditional carpet motifs as a background creates a relationship between buildings of different sizes and times. A steel and glass structure is placed at the center of the Bazaar, a landmark of modern and creative vitality giving life to space and opening new horizons. This structure dares to bring innovation in a sensitive old neighborhood, enhancing the qualities of the area.
The New Bazaar has become a positive encounter of different models of the city, including a pedestrian area, a lively shopping, eating and night-life space and a perfect touristic destination.

Where one cannot walk, one shall run
Where one cannot talk, one shall sing
Where one cannot sit, one shall fly
Where one no one knows, one shall love. (Olsi Eftimi)

New Bazaar and ‘’Avni Rustemi ‘’ square of Tirana ,Albania

2015
Client
ALBANIAN AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION
Area
10140 sqm
Status
Completed

NEW BAZZAR AND ''AVNI RUSTEMI '' SQUARE TIRANA/ ALBANIA by Atelier4 Architecture in Albania won the WA Award Cycle 34. Please find below the WA Award poster for this project.