Civil engineering heritage: country profile – Albania

This paper is a review of Albania’s civil engineering heritage, one of the series of national profiles being published by Engineering History and Heritage. It is presented under four headings: Albania’s major civil engineering achievements; national and regional recognitions of its engineering heritage; exemplar conservation of engineering structures; and information sources for engineering heritage. The paper discusses engineering structures of heritage importance including three United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage sites as well as many ancient remains from Illyrian, Greek and Roman times and medieval fortifications and castles. Many buildings and civil engineering structures remain from the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Albania was first establishing its own identity following independence from the Ottoman Empire. With help from Russia and China until the 1970s and independently since then, Albania has constructed many industries and many civil infrastructure including roads, bridges and over 600 irrigation dams. The paper identifies some organisations in Albania active in helping to conserve its engineering heritage, including the Central Technical Archive of Construction and concludes with a short list of websites and books giving further information about Albanian heritage.