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| Anna Shkreli, source: TEDx Tirana Official |
This house is located at ‘Him Kolli’ street, nr.13, was built circa 1910-1920.
It belonged to my great-grandmother. Before that this house was the site of the Gestapo in Tirana.
Houses like this, built out of clay and bricks, were diminished and perceived as less valuable than the Italian-styled villa’s. We are here to prove the contrary: these houses belong to a much larger architectural movement carried on in anonymity and were not so show-off-ish.
The facades were kept to themselves, the gardens were internal, in plain contrast with the buildings used by the administration in Zog’s era.
Now this house is Berk and Berk is not only a publishing house: it’s a concept, a philosophy.
For many, a book can be the only physical object connecting them to a multitude of perspectives. But for some there needs to be a space that aligns imagination and a physical site where people can discuss about their likes and dislikes. Berk is just that.
This building could have been anything but now is a publishing house, a cultural space, an intellectual site where people can meet and explore new ideas. We, of course, focus on publishing and try to not exclude anyone. Each of those who are published at Berk have had/have their own truths at a certain moment in history and we are here to bring newer and more in-depth perspectives.
We have many ideas on how to develop in the future and we are leaning towards a more experimental process of work, especially regarding typography. Another task is to further raise the stakes in the curatorial sector of book publishing. We are in the XXI century; publishers need to know their gatekeeping feature and focus more on quality content.
source: TEDx Tirana Official.