Derviçan: a morpho–typological development analysis as a tool for its conservation

Abstract

The rehabilitation of the rural villages with a strong heritage value like Derviçan pose many questions that need to be addressed in order to find practical answers concerning a problem that is strongly felt in different countries and contexts. We are talking about social and economic issues: how to prevent the risk of depopulation, how to regulate the new expansion, and how to preserve the historical and architectural characteristics. The most important matter is the knowledge of the morphological development and typological analysis of the urban tissue and, as mentioned by Riccardo Dalla Negra, regardless of the approach whether such knowledge is in the field of restoration or renovation. The methodological assumption used in the analysis of Derviçan’s tissue comes from the school of Saverio Muratori and his students, who sees the typological and anthropization process not merely as a static categorization of building types and building features, but instead as a process that, under certain aspects, it is still evolving in Derviçan. This analysis aims to identify the rules with which the buildings have changed over time and have adapted to new ways of living. These resources range from the use of the identified rules for planning the new city development in an organic and integrated manner, to the identification of historical paths with a view to valorisation, not only of the Derviçan village, but also of the complex system of settlements in the Dropull area. Thus, at a first analysis, it can be affirmed that the village of Derviçan, initially developed as a high promontory settlement near a punctiform polarity, over time turned into a low promontory settlement, attracted by a continuous cross-ridge, a new linear polarity. This magnetic element, still interpretable, has started to shift, in a more or less planned way, until it turned into the current Highway that leads from Gjirokastër to the Greek border: a new linear polarity, which, due to its characteristics, also acts as a limit to the expansion. On a closer scale, moreover, the analysis leads to a conscious action on the built, by respecting its identity, but at the same time allowing a transformation that takes into account the modern needs. The identification of those legitimate changes within the historical building, respecting what Arch. Riccardo Dalla Negra defined as “the physiological limitation of historical building type renovation”, represents the analytical method to follow, which aims not to overcome a limit that would involve the loss of the object itself as a heritage.