The Traditional Tower Houses of Kosovo and Albania -Origin, Development and Influences

Gheg-Albanians as well as Tosk-Albanians consider a distinct tower-house type of their traditional cultural heritage. Hence the closer look upon the structures in their geographical distribution from the Dukajin plains in nowadays Kosovo to the Dropull valley close to the Greek border provides a wide range of variations. Generally those structures serve as impressive residential houses (banesa) for rich landlords, warlords, tax collectors and merchants performing a rural-urban lifestyle. Therefore, a sophisticated blend of the all-time defendable Albanian tower house (kulla), still existing quite intact in the western Kosovo plains, and the comfortable Turkish life-style influenced residence was developed during the long centuries of the Ottoman rule. In the later 19th century, within the important trading towns of the south-eastern Balkan Peninsula, also Western European ideas of Historicism and Romanticism seemed to have led to the transformation of the rural kulla type of the Dukajin plains into the totally urban kullat of Gjakova and Peja. With the distinct knowledge of the widely renowned Albanian interdisciplinary craftsmanship of masons and carpenters, - well organized under master craftsmen for the planning and contracting -, stunning and sophisticated building structures were successfully erected on most difficult morphological sites, fulfilling different wishes of their multi-ethnical clients all over the Ottoman empires. Additionally to the solid and earthquake resistant stone basements, light weight construction methods of plastered wooden lath upper floors guaranteed since the middle of the 19th century an expanded climatic comfort for the hot seasons and avoided heavy damage in the seismic emergency case for the quite high-raised houses. This article tries to trace the different cultural influences transforming the original stone-tower houses probably kept for a long time in their Mediterranean-Medieval original configuration. Besides, it refers to the 19th century Austrian descriptions giving a deeper insight into the usual workflow of the craftsman troops from Dibra, responsible for the mason – carpenter structures, the gypsies (Egyptians), which they contracted for the metal work and the stone mason specialists from the Adriatic coast, who were in charge of specific fortification features