A creativity tour through the garden city

The tour of Michaela, Magdalena and Saimir started by entering the garden city through a "rabbit hole"; a dark passage underneath a colorful facade of an apartment block. The group designed a map especially for this tour to guide us through the area. 

The second stop is the street with the showcases. On this street people are selling all kinds of electric home products, like hair dryers and microwaves. Because of the many showcases on the street, this area is called the electric market. However, this way of selling goods is unofficial, so people bring their goods in the morning and take them again in the evening. The showcases are improvised, made of wood and cardboard. They look quite messy and unsecured. The products are collected in boxes, so that they can be easily transported.

Next to the market is the readers corner. Saimir is reading a book on a staircase in the sun, to show us what a guy was doing the day before. Above the reading spot, the facade says: “Te kam zgjedhur”, which means “I have chosen”. It seems that the guy had chosen the perfect spot to read a book.

As we continue the tour we pass ‘the gold future’. The gold future is an education center to learn foreign languages. The house was initially build for living, but now functioning as a school. The name of the school is promising, because learning a foreign language, is very important in Albania to become successful. 

The garden city gets its name from the many beautifull gardens, which are hidden behind the walls of the houses. As we walk through the area we pass many of these hidden paradises. They are always private, so we cannot enter them, but we can get a glimpse if we take look from up the wall.

We hurry to the next spot which belongs to a love story. The story goes that two loved ones, once wanted to connect their houses and therefore build these pillars in between. Unfortunatly they broke up, and the pillars are the only thing which remains of their love (we wonder if this story is really true). 

We skip Las Vegas and the staircase terrace. 

Magdalena makes us walk a rope, which is placed on the street to make the cars slow down. We think the rope is placed their by the citizens, not the municipality. 

The end of the tour is a dynamic wooden construction called ‘station rabbithole’ It is an imaginary tram station from which we can take the tram to The Hague. A ticket is offered by our tourguides.