Talk on the Architectural Heritage of Gjirokaster by Louise Schofield, 17 March 2021

This is one of our series of talks about Albania's architectural heritage, the first of which - in June last year - looked at threats to the architectural heritage of the capital, Tirana. Louise's talk will be followed by Q and A.  Louise worked in Albania from 2000-2006, principally in Butrint and Gjirokaster, in the south of the country. Her restoration and conservation project for Gjirokaster achieved UNESCO World Heritage Site listing for the city in July 2005. Every August Louise returns to Albania to join her former students in their excavations at Butrint.  We are fortunate to have a speaker with such insights into the history and architecture of Gjirokaster, the city which Ismail Kadare described as follows in his "Chronicle in Stone": "Everything in the city was old and made of stone, from the streets and fountains to the roofs of the sprawling age-old houses covered with grey slates like gigantic scales..... It was a slanted city, set at a sharper angle than perhaps any other city on earth, and it defied the laws of architecture and city planning. The top of one house might graze the foundation of another, and it was surely the only place in the world where if you slipped and fell in the street, you might well land on the roof of a house....."