Responding to Particular Needs at a Precise Moment

Responding to Particular Needs at a Precise Moment is the visual interpretation of a research by Jonas von Lenthe into the architectural landscape of Tirana. With rudimentary photos which Lenthe personally took, archive material and interviews with local architects this book shows how architecture developed in the outskirts of Tirana and reflects people’s own ways in adapting to particular moments. Moments such as when the government’s housing support shrunk, which led to the appearance of features like integrating balconies into the internal space of houses, or making “unplanned” additions of entire floors! These represent spontaneous individual building extensions, open-ended projects, in divergence from the systematic urban planning of the socialist state.