Geometry of The Addition – Readings on Some Declinations of The Albanian Traditional Dwelling

The research investigates the topic of the architectural re-construction of Berat, after the earthquake of 1851, attempting a reading of the declination of the architecture to the features of the fragmented landscape of the city, an applicable approach to contemporary transformations. Building on the built, changing the existing constructions according to the needs of the time, has always been the modus operandi in the city in which the stratifications of different eras have allowed to make cities real palimpsests of architectural signs and traces, evidence of past. The research is based on the transformation of the dwelling, read as a sort of fusion of local architectural features with Ottoman architecture. It describes the features and the composition of the Albanian house through the plans of some examples of traditional houses that are described and compared with some Ottoman houses in Istanbul studied by Sedad Hakki Eldem. The testimony of Berat reveals some suggestive declinations of the dwelling that adapts to the urban limits of a steep and fragile terrain. After the earthquake of 1851, the reconstruction of the houses is done by keeping the existing ground floor in heavy stone and replacing the elevated floor seriously damaged by the earthquake. The fragment of the pre-existing tower house thus becomes the base in which the inhabited floor is rebuilt with a light wooden structure. The composition of the Ottoman house, an expression of its own time, is superimposed to the past architecture of the city represented by the local typology of houses, adapting itself to the fragmented character of the place seeking a dialogue in which contaminations and permanence’s redefine the identity of the city