Traditional timber roof structures in Albania through the analysis of the Albanian ethnographic sources

In this paper, I will shed light on a less-known Albanian legacy in the main framework of historic timber roof structures. During the wide and impressive study campaign and survey of traditional architecture carried out by the main Albanian scholars in the field of ethnography and architecture studies throughout the Socialist regime (1944-1992), the less studied structural and architectural components turned out to be the timber roof structures. Among the many ethnographic sources produced by Albanian ethnographers during the dictatorship, I will especially focus on and analyse the archival materials provided by the ethnographer Ali Muka. During the last decade before the collapse of the regime Muka, by means of the diffusion of 3 detailed questionnaires and many ethnographic expeditions, aimed at investigating rural settlements, traditional dwelling houses typologies and the building technology of masonry walls and timber roof structures. According to the published results of Muka’s investigation, all over Albanian territory the most common type of roof was the so-called stropil roof. Some notable exceptions include the examples in the Albanian Alps, such as the village of Theth, and the case of Gjirokastër’s traditional timber roofs identified, studied and classified during my PhD research. Woodworking procedures and techniques, construction process details and related popular beliefs, left behind in handmade graphic representations and technical drawings realized by the professionals of the Instituti i Monumenteve të Kulturës (IMK), where collected and reported by the ethnographers of the Instituti i Kulturës Popullore (IKP). Nowadays, archival sources preserved at the archives of the Instituti i Antropologjisë Kulturore dhe Studimi të Artit (IAKSA), together with the many testimonies of Albanian traditional architecture throughout the territory, constitute an important and fundamental key-part in retracing and recovering the knowledge about material culture and traditional building techniques in Albania.