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Dorina Pllumbi
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1
Marginalized Spatialities
Situated reflections on state collectivism and kincommoning in Albania
This doctoral study explores forms of collectivities and their spatial politics in Albania across three political periods: state socialism, the anarchic aftermath of its collapse in the early 1990s, and the current neoliberal regime. It challenges the prevailing assumption that the fall of state socialism led to the loss of collective practices and a turn towards individualism. The study draws a sharp distinction between state collectivism, utilized by the party-state as the main ideological tool, and fragmented commoning practices that persisted and intensified precisely in moments of institutional failure and political instability.
Empirically, despite their fluctuating agency, it shows that commoning practices have remained present and politically relevant throughout successive regimes. Often overlooked and marginalized in professional and academic discourse, they have served as vital social infrastructures shaping the materialization of livelihood patterns and urbanization. Theoretically, the study advances the concept of kincommoning to account for collective practices reliant on practical kin-making, spatial proximity, reciprocity, and migration. It engages with these practices as contested terrains, recognizing the internal tensions and contradictions, while foregrounding their capacity to sustain collective life, as well as their often unseen defiant tacit politics of everyday life. Methodologically, the research has a transdisciplinary approach, integrating multi-modal spatial ethnography, including documentary film production, and reflexive writing.
Centering the agency of marginalized places as generative of knowledge rather than mere case studies, the dissertation critiques deterministic emancipatory frameworks perpetuated by the interplay of hierarchies of state power, market forces, and professional practices of architecture and urban planning.
...
Empirically, despite their fluctuating agency, it shows that commoning practices have remained present and politically relevant throughout successive regimes. Often overlooked and marginalized in professional and academic discourse, they have served as vital social infrastructures shaping the materialization of livelihood patterns and urbanization. Theoretically, the study advances the concept of kincommoning to account for collective practices reliant on practical kin-making, spatial proximity, reciprocity, and migration. It engages with these practices as contested terrains, recognizing the internal tensions and contradictions, while foregrounding their capacity to sustain collective life, as well as their often unseen defiant tacit politics of everyday life. Methodologically, the research has a transdisciplinary approach, integrating multi-modal spatial ethnography, including documentary film production, and reflexive writing.
Centering the agency of marginalized places as generative of knowledge rather than mere case studies, the dissertation critiques deterministic emancipatory frameworks perpetuated by the interplay of hierarchies of state power, market forces, and professional practices of architecture and urban planning.
...
This doctoral study explores forms of collectivities and their spatial politics in Albania across three political periods: state socialism, the anarchic aftermath of its collapse in the early 1990s, and the current neoliberal regime. It challenges the prevailing assumption that the fall of state socialism led to the loss of collective practices and a turn towards individualism. The study draws a sharp distinction between state collectivism, utilized by the party-state as the main ideological tool, and fragmented commoning practices that persisted and intensified precisely in moments of institutional failure and political instability.
Empirically, despite their fluctuating agency, it shows that commoning practices have remained present and politically relevant throughout successive regimes. Often overlooked and marginalized in professional and academic discourse, they have served as vital social infrastructures shaping the materialization of livelihood patterns and urbanization. Theoretically, the study advances the concept of kincommoning to account for collective practices reliant on practical kin-making, spatial proximity, reciprocity, and migration. It engages with these practices as contested terrains, recognizing the internal tensions and contradictions, while foregrounding their capacity to sustain collective life, as well as their often unseen defiant tacit politics of everyday life. Methodologically, the research has a transdisciplinary approach, integrating multi-modal spatial ethnography, including documentary film production, and reflexive writing.
Centering the agency of marginalized places as generative of knowledge rather than mere case studies, the dissertation critiques deterministic emancipatory frameworks perpetuated by the interplay of hierarchies of state power, market forces, and professional practices of architecture and urban planning.
Empirically, despite their fluctuating agency, it shows that commoning practices have remained present and politically relevant throughout successive regimes. Often overlooked and marginalized in professional and academic discourse, they have served as vital social infrastructures shaping the materialization of livelihood patterns and urbanization. Theoretically, the study advances the concept of kincommoning to account for collective practices reliant on practical kin-making, spatial proximity, reciprocity, and migration. It engages with these practices as contested terrains, recognizing the internal tensions and contradictions, while foregrounding their capacity to sustain collective life, as well as their often unseen defiant tacit politics of everyday life. Methodologically, the research has a transdisciplinary approach, integrating multi-modal spatial ethnography, including documentary film production, and reflexive writing.
Centering the agency of marginalized places as generative of knowledge rather than mere case studies, the dissertation critiques deterministic emancipatory frameworks perpetuated by the interplay of hierarchies of state power, market forces, and professional practices of architecture and urban planning.
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 the state-socialist era, and into the contemporary neoliberal period, architecture in Tirana has been used as a tool of political expression and domination. Despite the ideological clashes between nationalism with both socialism and neoliberalism, these regimes have employed nationalistic rhetoric to shape architectures and consolidate political power. Under the state-socialist regime, exemplified by buildings like the National History Museum and Skanderbeg Museum in Krujë, architecture merged nationalism with socialist ideology to project an Albanian national identity as European and Socialist. In the 2010s, under Prime Minister Edi Rama, nationalistic architecture is currently emerging as a blend of national identity with neoliberal agendas. This trend, exemplified, among others, by projects like Downtown One Tirana (Map building) and Skanderbeg Building designed by MVRDV, often reduces Albanian identity to commodified symbols designed for foreign consumption, prioritizing economic gain over a rich and diverse cultural heritage. The article concludes that while the power dynamics have evolved, the instrumentalization of architecture by those in power persists, albeit in more playful forms and through the figure of the star architect. The recent nationalistic-themed architectures in Tirana exemplify how Balkan nationalism, on the one hand, is often perceived as a marker of “backwardness”, yet on the other hand, this very backwardness can be exoticized when it is reinterpreted with irony or humor by prominent Western architects.
...
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 the state-socialist era, and into the contemporary neoliberal period, architecture in Tirana has been used as a tool of political expression and domination. Despite the ideological clashes between nationalism with both socialism and neoliberalism, these regimes have employed nationalistic rhetoric to shape architectures and consolidate political power. Under the state-socialist regime, exemplified by buildings like the National History Museum and Skanderbeg Museum in Krujë, architecture merged nationalism with socialist ideology to project an Albanian national identity as European and Socialist. In the 2010s, under Prime Minister Edi Rama, nationalistic architecture is currently emerging as a blend of national identity with neoliberal agendas. This trend, exemplified, among others, by projects like Downtown One Tirana (Map building) and Skanderbeg Building designed by MVRDV, often reduces Albanian identity to commodified symbols designed for foreign consumption, prioritizing economic gain over a rich and diverse cultural heritage. The article concludes that while the power dynamics have evolved, the instrumentalization of architecture by those in power persists, albeit in more playful forms and through the figure of the star architect. The recent nationalistic-themed architectures in Tirana exemplify how Balkan nationalism, on the one hand, is often perceived as a marker of “backwardness”, yet on the other hand, this very backwardness can be exoticized when it is reinterpreted with irony or humor by prominent Western architects.
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, Willie, visiting Albania for the first time through an STSM, and Dorina, temporarily located in the Netherlands, exchange daily thoughts aiming to interpret the two cities’ urban situations and sociopolitical conditions. Albania’s historical position at the edge of Europe has seen a remarkable shift in recent times, turning into an emerging discovery. Simultaneously, a burgeoning self-awareness of subverting narratives of representation has begun to take root among the Albanian youth – a phenomenon that adds depth and complexity to the ongoing dialogue. The transformation of the cities and the country is explained as multivocal while acknowledging protests, loss and destruction as part of a glorified urban project.
...
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, Willie, visiting Albania for the first time through an STSM, and Dorina, temporarily located in the Netherlands, exchange daily thoughts aiming to interpret the two cities’ urban situations and sociopolitical conditions. Albania’s historical position at the edge of Europe has seen a remarkable shift in recent times, turning into an emerging discovery. Simultaneously, a burgeoning self-awareness of subverting narratives of representation has begun to take root among the Albanian youth – a phenomenon that adds depth and complexity to the ongoing dialogue. The transformation of the cities and the country is explained as multivocal while acknowledging protests, loss and destruction as part of a glorified urban project.
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 more and reflect upon two major concepts that have played an essential role in the formation of these two cities: the planned and the unplanned, and to potentially challenge this dichotomy. The professional way of planning the city is often understood as an organised arrangement from the top, showing a vision, a projection towards the future of an urban area. This is a technical but also political procedure, usually reflected in documents and maps, signed and agreed upon in between the professionals and officials in power. There are different levels of how much a city is regulated, and Tirana, like every city, has its particular relationship with incorporating planning in its formation. The professional planning in the city was mainly imported and is relatively recent starting from when the city was declared a capital in 1920. Nevertheless, beyond the need to regulate and facilitate livability of a built environment, planning is often related to the idea of control, over a certain territory, over the bodies that populate it, and over the activities they do. During this training school we saw how in Tirana the need for planning has come along with the need from the top for a certain political ideology to express its face in the city. We also noticed how there is a resistance to centralised forms of planning the city, and how the unplanned has always remained part of spatio-temporal activities in the city. Kamza, on the other hand, is a city created during the last three decades of transitioning from the totalitarian regime, when there was a wave of migrants from the north-eastern part of Albania. Developed in times of anarchy, when the state was absent, it is known for its autonomous character, often seen, portrayed, and stigmatised as a sort of wild urbanism outside the boundaries of the discipline of urban planning. When having a closer encounter with Kamza one can actually understand that what is usually understood as unplanned, is often a co-planned or a semi-planned process of creation; a common endeavour based on relationships of kin, family, and community. [...]
...
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 more and reflect upon two major concepts that have played an essential role in the formation of these two cities: the planned and the unplanned, and to potentially challenge this dichotomy. The professional way of planning the city is often understood as an organised arrangement from the top, showing a vision, a projection towards the future of an urban area. This is a technical but also political procedure, usually reflected in documents and maps, signed and agreed upon in between the professionals and officials in power. There are different levels of how much a city is regulated, and Tirana, like every city, has its particular relationship with incorporating planning in its formation. The professional planning in the city was mainly imported and is relatively recent starting from when the city was declared a capital in 1920. Nevertheless, beyond the need to regulate and facilitate livability of a built environment, planning is often related to the idea of control, over a certain territory, over the bodies that populate it, and over the activities they do. During this training school we saw how in Tirana the need for planning has come along with the need from the top for a certain political ideology to express its face in the city. We also noticed how there is a resistance to centralised forms of planning the city, and how the unplanned has always remained part of spatio-temporal activities in the city. Kamza, on the other hand, is a city created during the last three decades of transitioning from the totalitarian regime, when there was a wave of migrants from the north-eastern part of Albania. Developed in times of anarchy, when the state was absent, it is known for its autonomous character, often seen, portrayed, and stigmatised as a sort of wild urbanism outside the boundaries of the discipline of urban planning. When having a closer encounter with Kamza one can actually understand that what is usually understood as unplanned, is often a co-planned or a semi-planned process of creation; a common endeavour based on relationships of kin, family, and community. [...]
Delft
Views on Delft
Journal article
(2023)
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F. Tanis, A. Sioli, J.A. Hawkins, Aleksandar Staničić, K.M. Havik, H.E. Dale, W.C. Vogel, S.I. de Wit, J.A. Mejia Hernandez, E. Pérez Guembe, Dorina Pllumbi
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 sky, and being reflected in the water of the river. The light looks alive: despite the clouds it is bright, setting the buildings of Delft and the riverbank in the foreground in a palpable warmth. Delft, an intermediate European city in the province of South Holland, between The Hague and Rotterdam, has featured quite prominently in Dutch city narratives, partially thanks to Vermeer’s paintings, which showed fragments of both spatial and social characteristics of the city in the sev-enteenth century. In the same period, biologist Anthoni van Leeuwenhoek experimented with lenses and built a microscope, which led to the discovery of the micro-world of cells and bacteria. The city’s small streets, the canals, the church towers and the market squares still remind us of the times of Vermeer and Van Leeuwenhoek. But Delft today, as a centre of trade, knowl-edge and art, is a very vibrant city, with the University of Technology as one of its most celebrated contemporary inhabitants. The TU Delft is recog-nized around the world for educating progressive thinkers and innovators in varied engineering fields, while its Faculty of Architecture has raised, and keeps raising, inspired generations of architects and designers. As Delft is the city where this Writing Urban Place network originated, and where many members of the network have lived, studied or lectured, or are still doing all the above, we have asked our Delft-related colleagues for their views on Delft, painting for our readers, in words, their accounts of the sociospatial characteristics of this city, their relationship with the water, their favourite urban places, their personal Views of 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 sky, and being reflected in the water of the river. The light looks alive: despite the clouds it is bright, setting the buildings of Delft and the riverbank in the foreground in a palpable warmth. Delft, an intermediate European city in the province of South Holland, between The Hague and Rotterdam, has featured quite prominently in Dutch city narratives, partially thanks to Vermeer’s paintings, which showed fragments of both spatial and social characteristics of the city in the sev-enteenth century. In the same period, biologist Anthoni van Leeuwenhoek experimented with lenses and built a microscope, which led to the discovery of the micro-world of cells and bacteria. The city’s small streets, the canals, the church towers and the market squares still remind us of the times of Vermeer and Van Leeuwenhoek. But Delft today, as a centre of trade, knowl-edge and art, is a very vibrant city, with the University of Technology as one of its most celebrated contemporary inhabitants. The TU Delft is recog-nized around the world for educating progressive thinkers and innovators in varied engineering fields, while its Faculty of Architecture has raised, and keeps raising, inspired generations of architects and designers. As Delft is the city where this Writing Urban Place network originated, and where many members of the network have lived, studied or lectured, or are still doing all the above, we have asked our Delft-related colleagues for their views on Delft, painting for our readers, in words, their accounts of the sociospatial characteristics of this city, their relationship with the water, their favourite urban places, their personal Views of Delft.
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 triggered a migratory wave, not only out of the country but also within, towards the capital city of Tirana and its vicinity. Kamza, from an agrarian area close to the capital, turned into an arrival settlement for many families moving from the northeastern part of Albania where they had massively lost their jobs and social services previously provided by the state. First shelters resembled the primordial hut made out of local materials, like wood, plastic, or metal sheets. In the absence of the state, during the first years of settling in Kamza, the inhabitants had to rely fully on communal resources, in solidarity, kinship, and traditional oral regulations inherited from the place of origin. This gave Kamza the character of an autonomous, anarchic city, whose inhabitants were constantly stigmatized and othered as the newcomers, the squatters of land, and as those abiding by tribal customary self-organizational rules beyond the state and the market.
...
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 triggered a migratory wave, not only out of the country but also within, towards the capital city of Tirana and its vicinity. Kamza, from an agrarian area close to the capital, turned into an arrival settlement for many families moving from the northeastern part of Albania where they had massively lost their jobs and social services previously provided by the state. First shelters resembled the primordial hut made out of local materials, like wood, plastic, or metal sheets. In the absence of the state, during the first years of settling in Kamza, the inhabitants had to rely fully on communal resources, in solidarity, kinship, and traditional oral regulations inherited from the place of origin. This gave Kamza the character of an autonomous, anarchic city, whose inhabitants were constantly stigmatized and othered as the newcomers, the squatters of land, and as those abiding by tribal customary self-organizational rules beyond the state and the market.
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 collective resistance to save the National Theater, which was brutally demolished in May 2020. The story of the theater is essential in understanding the ongoing suffocation of collective emancipatory initiatives generated spontaneously in times of developmentalist pressure of a corrupt state-power-capital coalition which does not confine itself even to the material cultural heritage. The commoning process of the resistance challenges power relations while generating new extra-institutional practices of care for the spatial and material conditions of the space and the human bodies affectively related to it. It contributes to a new understanding of collectivity in Albanian society, an indispensable feature to achieve democracy. The theater building plays an active role in generating collective practices, carrying a political and emotional load, that affect perpetual bonding relations. The affective capacity of the material-human formation challenges the current material culture of demolition and construction in Tirana and the language around it. New architectural practices of resistance emerge as new ways of engaging in collective endeavors in city-making.
...
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 collective resistance to save the National Theater, which was brutally demolished in May 2020. The story of the theater is essential in understanding the ongoing suffocation of collective emancipatory initiatives generated spontaneously in times of developmentalist pressure of a corrupt state-power-capital coalition which does not confine itself even to the material cultural heritage. The commoning process of the resistance challenges power relations while generating new extra-institutional practices of care for the spatial and material conditions of the space and the human bodies affectively related to it. It contributes to a new understanding of collectivity in Albanian society, an indispensable feature to achieve democracy. The theater building plays an active role in generating collective practices, carrying a political and emotional load, that affect perpetual bonding relations. The affective capacity of the material-human formation challenges the current material culture of demolition and construction in Tirana and the language around it. New architectural practices of resistance emerge as new ways of engaging in collective endeavors in city-making.
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 inhabitants.
...
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 inhabitants.
Adopted as a playscape, Tirana’s Pyramid should not be cleansed of its multi-layered, complex memories
...
Adopted as a playscape, Tirana’s Pyramid should not be cleansed of its multi-layered, complex memories
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 periphery.
This paper aims to explore how this stigmatization has been constructed and materialized in the built environment and the political and professional discourse. The paper presents a situational but also comparative analysis of Albanian and Galician realities, drawing similarities and different local perspectives present in academia, media, politics and architectural circles. This multi-layered and hybrid observation seeks to further explore the relational, ethnographic narratives of resistance, that subvert the myth of what is commonly understood as ugliness. Did the media or the political rhetoric of beautification had an impact over the years? Did the depreciation or demolition of heritage play a role in the production of identitarian stigmas? Are self-building practices at the root of this understanding of ugliness? We aim to see these architectural expressions differently, as playing a paradigmatic role in disrupting the hygienist industrialized models of European cities which are extensively promoted as the only way of designing the built environment.
...
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 periphery.
This paper aims to explore how this stigmatization has been constructed and materialized in the built environment and the political and professional discourse. The paper presents a situational but also comparative analysis of Albanian and Galician realities, drawing similarities and different local perspectives present in academia, media, politics and architectural circles. This multi-layered and hybrid observation seeks to further explore the relational, ethnographic narratives of resistance, that subvert the myth of what is commonly understood as ugliness. Did the media or the political rhetoric of beautification had an impact over the years? Did the depreciation or demolition of heritage play a role in the production of identitarian stigmas? Are self-building practices at the root of this understanding of ugliness? We aim to see these architectural expressions differently, as playing a paradigmatic role in disrupting the hygienist industrialized models of European cities which are extensively promoted as the only way of designing the built environment.
Blogpost in online magazine Peizazhe të Fjalës, 16-05-2020.
...
Blogpost in online magazine Peizazhe të Fjalës, 16-05-2020.
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 former shipwharf was transformed into an “incubator”: a creative hub with artist studios, theater spaces, a skate park and other facilities for cultural production. In this article, we specifically investigate the role of architects in this context. Unfolding the process reveals the emergence of the figure of the participant-architect who participates in the shared authorship, within a collective situated knowledge. This knowledge is simultaneously produced in the place and productive of the place.
...
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 former shipwharf was transformed into an “incubator”: a creative hub with artist studios, theater spaces, a skate park and other facilities for cultural production. In this article, we specifically investigate the role of architects in this context. Unfolding the process reveals the emergence of the figure of the participant-architect who participates in the shared authorship, within a collective situated knowledge. This knowledge is simultaneously produced in the place and productive of the place.