I am reminded of the famous quote of Kadare from “Kronike ne gur” when he was talking about Gjirokastra. He said: “This was a bizzarre city, which seemed to have come up in the valley unexpectedly in a winter’s night like pre-historic being and with great hardship was sawn on the mountainside. Everything in this town was old and smooth ranging from the streets to the roofs, – centuries old homes that were covered with grey stone tiles taht resembled giant skylight. It was hard to believe that under these strong and frozen giants was rejuvanted the soft flesh of life. This quote seems more than actual and looks like nothing has changed in Gjirokastra during all this years. During our visits to Skenduli’s house I got inspired by different elements of the floor and the ceiling. Every detail was places in a playful way in every corner of the house. That’s why my aim was to introduce the concept of “play” in the public places
and tryng to implement this idea into a specific project. Every child from birth starts to play in his own way, but at some point of his life he has started to play the puzzle game. The puzzle symbolizes mobility, movement, connectivity, creativity, imagination. My idea consists in using the puzzle element to produce a prototype to be sold in the market. The prototype could be a key-holder with some memo (anniversary, birthday, something to remind you that you were in Gjirokastra on a specific date) always together connected through the puzzle shape. The second stage of the project will be to implement the puzzle, the idea of play, in public spaces. The puzzle can be a sitting element in urban design, so people can meet and have a coffee or just socialize with each other. It can be also use as an element to hide behind during the battles of paintball played every week. The space can also be used as a way to exhibit different products from culinary, hand-crafts, photo or painting exhibition. Sometimes the obelisk space can be used even as an outdoor cinema place. Overall, the aim of this project will be to make “Rruga e artizanatit” and Obelisk space more accessible to the people and to create the calendar of events so this activities can generate more income for the locals.
