A new Ethnographic Museum is part of the four museums project designed to enrich tourist offer of the southern city of Gjirokaster, along with the Kadare Museum, the National Museum of Armaments and the Castle Prison Museum. Thanks to a design by the Spanish architect Jesus Hernandez, author of Marubi Photography Museum in Shkoder, these spaces will take a whole fresh look. Prime Minister Edi Rama said that the Ethnographic Museum in Gjirokaster is set to become a national cultural heritage site. “It will be a National Ethnographic Museum in terms of its status, just like Marubi Museum in Shkodra and the Icon Museum in Korça.”

The head of the Albanian Development Fund Dritan Agolli said the project features three main elements, the Ethnographic Museum, Museum House of writer Ismail Kadare, Edward Lear Alley, namely the footpath Lear walked along the entire historic area, seeing it through the same perspective Lear once has seen it. Along with the Street of the Mad – Agolli went on to explain – the project also envisages an urban retrofitting with resting places for the people to read, thus turning it into an openair museum.

The Ethnographic Museum project is part of the urban and tourism development program, which also includes rehabilitation of the Bazaar’s Pass area, with the most important intervention set to take place in Gjirokaster’s castle.

 

***

The Municipal Theatre project is also nearing its completion in the city of Gjirokaster. Built in 1970, the Theatre’s building had undergone no restoration project since then and its spaces were occupied over the years. “It was more of a kind of a refrigerator,” the government head said as he described the old Theatre building.

The ongoing restoration projects launched by local government authorities are affecting all logistical elements of the Municipal Theatre building, from the stage to the dressing rooms, the hall, the heating and lighting system. An important element of the project also includes construction of a museum on the theatre’s history inside the new building. Likewise, entire public space outside the Theatre building will also be revitalized.