THE OVERALL PROJECT OBJECTIVE
Raising, or indeed creating, a Tourism profile for Gjirokastra is an essential element in revitalising
the Old City. Without the old buildings having economic purpose there is little prospect of either the
state or individual owners having the resource or the desire to continually support the buildings
conservation; as conservation without purpose is a luxury that Albania can ill afford.

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The old town of Gjirokastra is an exceptional testimony to a long lasting, and almost disappeared
society and life-style that has been influenced by the culture and traditions of Islam and the Ottoman
period. Its buildings are characterised by large-scale stone walled and roofed tower houses whilst its
streets are built almost solely from pink, white and black sandstone which have given rise to it being
described as ‘City of Stone’ and which formed a central ‘character’ in Ismail Kadare’s ‘Chronicle in
Stone’.

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Gjirokastra’s heritage is at risk for a wide variety of reasons.
In this report, the authors advocate that Gjirokastra adopts strategies designed to
safeguard the role of its historic areas in the ongoing economic activity of the town
whilst ensuring this does not dilute the worth of the underlying heritage asset. This
necessitates the identification, protection, conservation and restoration of the urban
fabric within a conservation-planning framework. In parallel with this, policies and
programmes to encourage economic development and exploitation will need to be
developed. These two aspects cannot be developed in isolation as the authors argue
that they are mutually dependent parts of an urban plan.

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