Ismail Kadare's house becomes a museum, opens to the public

Thanks to the Tirana City Hall project, led by architect Elizabeta Terragny, the house where she lived and worked for many years to write some of his best-known literary works, the genius of Albanian letters Ismail Kadare, has become a museum.

Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj, Culture Minister Elva Margariti, director Piro Milkani, ambassadors of many art and literary personalities participated in the opening of the apartment reflecting the life of renowned writer Ismail Kadare during the totalitarian period.

“Ismail's expression that there is always time for man to do something useful for his country is fantastic. We somehow took time, in many jobs that the city has, to do something useful for our country, not something exclusive to Tirana, but something that exalts, but also opens a window for one of the most emblems, one of the best-known brands in Albania, which is Ismail Kadare, Helena and their family, as well as the work that has been brought out of this”, Veliaj said.

The mayor expressed confidence that this building would turn into a destination for tourists.

“We want this museum to be certainly one in the ten things seen in Tirana, after Bunker, the leafhouse, the square, our cult institutions, the National Museum, Ballet Opera”, he said.

Inside the apartment, exposure is divided between original documents, objects, books, and furniture, as well as areas where you can gain knowledge of the writer's work in the form of a reading angle.

But in the Palace of Cuba, as is otherwise known in the capital, there has also been the renowned writer Dritaro Agolli. Tirana City Hall has decided that even this apartment will become a museum to share some fragments of Agoll's life with the public. This palace was not only the address of Ismail and Elena, it is also the address of the Agoli family. We're having discussions with the two children of Lightrow to do the same, and to turn him into a museum. So the entire palace will be visited. Fehmi Ibrahimi and other personalities have lived in this palace, so I believe that sooner or later it will return to a destination where Tirana City Hall with local museums will start a new tradition”, Veliaj underlined.

The job won't stop here. The entire palace where two Albanian-language choirs lived will undergo a deep intervention entrusted to its architect, Max Velo. This facility, built before the years, was in the middle of Tirana and resulted in a constant provocation to the official art of the time.

Tirana's municipality is exploring new opportunities for creating other visiting spaces for citizens and tourists. So, along with those in the city centre, there will be other museums in other areas of Tirana that will confess more to the capital. And we're exploring other spaces in Tirana, just like the house of Ismaili and Girethro, to have other areas that we can return to and from different parts of the city, not to focus on our central part. We want to, in this case, start a beautiful tradition of local museums. We are discussing that in the Tirana Castle area we have a local Tirana city museum, and to make sure that in major minority homes, perhaps the best way to preserve those buildings is to own them, as we did with this building”, Veliaj stressed.

Another good news is the distribution of the Student Charter, which enables young people to access various museums free of charge or at very reduced prices. “From today's museum will be open, even to students, since we begin distributing Student Cards together with the minister, for students next week it is 80 % discounts. So almost free for all students. Meanwhile, there are certainly different offers for those who are tourists, who are groups, for children, it is also free of”, Veliaj suggested.