After the war, there was a foreigner in Prishtina,
and he lost the way to his hotel
he was in the main suite.
He asked somebody, he said:
"Please, can you tell me, where is the Grand Hotel?"
The boy said: "Do you see the end of the street?"
The building there? He said: Yes, I see it!
That's not the Grand Hotel, it's the one on the right.
(Laughs)
So, my way of being an architect
was also very irregular and round.
I studied architecture in two universities
for almost ten years and when I finished
I was really not so sure about what to do
and where to begin, so I thought
I will take more time.
And started to travel and I said,
if i didn't understand architecture in school
maybe I should go myself and see,
and actually, what i discovered was that,
when you are in the building, when you're visiting the building,
you spend time.
You go there, sometimes in some places
you spend a week there or three days
and you arrive there you want to spend some more time.
So what do you do? You look. You look, and after a while
you try to see
because you can't see in the very beginning.
Actually is very important to see.
If you draw and I used to draw a lot,
it takes time. People tell
You have a very good hand,
Actually, it's not the hand who's drawing.
It's the head, it's the eyes, it's the look.
You can not draw if you can not look.
So you have to learn to look.
If you see, then you can learn to draw.
It's very easy, you don't have to think.
(Applause)
If you would ask me to say only one place,
this is TED, we have to do it shortly,
only one place where which I would choose between all I have seen
there is a city in India, Ahmedabad,
which has four buildings of le Corbusier
and one building of Louis Kahn,
a school actually, a university.
These two architects are the ones which
are the modern architects
which have influenced ...
everything I have done
By their way of building
also by the way of thinking
and particularly one of these four buildings
of le Corbusier, this one
is exactly in this building that I
had a feeling that I had something in my hand.
A moment when you think
like you holding something?
I wouldn't call it a truth
but something really very strong.
And I said: "Well, OK, now I want to become an architect."
and the next thing to do
i said, I want to go home.
And I went to Prizren first.
This is 1913.
Prizren was born out of two very simple rules.
One, is the rule of "no harm"
You don't do to your neigbors what
you wouldn't like them to do to you.
the second is "beauty without arrogance".
(Applause)
These two principles could make a city like this.
it's very simple.
So what I found was this
and this to me was ugliness with arrogance.
(Applause)
I have something worse than this!
(Laughs)
There is no limit in bad things also in good ones.
In the very begining in Kosovo I realize
that I wanted to change things
I came there to change things.
But you cannot change the otherss
you can change only yourself.
and i didn't want to change myself
in a way of becoming like the others
I wanted to stay with my beliefs
but I wanted to change other things
and i had to find a way
so I could speak to the people
to my people.
So they would understand what I mean
and I was sure they will understand.
So I tried to find a language
a common language
that could speak to them
and could be what I think
So I concentrated on one thing
that the architecture should improve people lives
If you ask me
What is a good architecture?
There is one thing that all good architecture should have
Architecture should improve your life
should be something that makes your living better
Cities could be a better place to live
(Applause)
A school should be a place
where you can get inspired to learn
a house should be a place
where you have a well being
A room should be a place
which inspires happiness
This is my daughter in the top of my house
I don't have to tell you
that she's happy there.
One of the basic things
in my work was that I was
always limited financially.
All my clients had very little means
so I had to find a way
to make things with very little
and making things with very little,
it's learning the simplicity.
One of the elements that you'll see
my buildings is concrete.
And many people ask me,
Why do you make concrete buildings?
We didn't have a choice, actually,
concrete is the only material
we could afford.
We couldn't afford stone
We couldn't afford marble
but concrete, yes.
You could do good things with concrete
if you respect it
and if you find a way
to make it real,
to make it only once,
You don't put a second layer
if you don't have to.
Buqalla Pools & Hotel,
was my biggest commission
and it took me five years
to build everything.
It was my biggest project,
but actually it's the one which
I had trouble to explain.
There were two or three things which started,
One was that, I wanted a place where the man
can meet the nature.
It sounds very theoretical
but imagine, you come to this place
to forget you everyday life,
your problems and you want to feel well.
So I wanted a place where you
could feel well.
Where you're not relaxed,
but just feel good.
Maybe get inspired to do things.
The second thing was, I wanted architeture
to be related to the nature.
If you imagine architecture here
and nature here and something in between.
This thing in between is a sort of
human landscape,
it's not the nature
and it's not the inside.
It's sort of between nature and architecture.
So, these two elements
made this complex, this architecture.
(Applause)
I realize during this five years
that it was very difficult to practice
architecture in Kosovo
the way I was used to do it
in Switzerland.
I had to adapt.
One of the really basic things that happen
is that architecture I think in Albania
and Kosovo is the same.
We are in a process of changes.
Building is still like in maybe 200 years ago
where owners hires the builders,
to build their houses
and they don't need architects.
Sometimes they buy papers from architects
and they give it to the builders
but they cannot replace us.
So, I had only one choice
to do something well
that was to become a master builder
by myself.
(Applause)
These are the real builders,
the owner was not there.
So they were relaxing.
This is a very small house,
the very smallest I have done.
It's a family of four
and they didn't have a lot of money
So, they wanted a really little house
which fulfills all their needs.
I made a sort of strategic plan
how to do it.
I developed four points.
Which can be a sort of generic
to generate architecture in this situation.
One of these was to make an efficient plan.
An efficient plan is like you plan
that the life in the house
should be really very well organized
and it works well
not one centimeter lost.
The second thing was, we wanted to use
local labor and materials.
People who built it, they lived in the same place
and the materials were coming from near,
so they were cheaper.
We used the passive solar energy.
It costs nothing.
If you have a lot of windows in the south,
you have sun in winter, and shade in summer
because the sun is high.
(Applause)
The fourth element was
to design and build everything.
We designed lights
we designed furniture,
we designed many many things
it was cheaper to design and build things
than buy ready made
which were ugly anyway.
Dida house was much bigger
maybe two three times bigger
but it didn't cost two three times more.
Dida house is a holiday house.
They don't live there all the time.
In Kosovo we have very extreme climate.
The winter is very cold.
The summer is very hot.
So traditionally, we have to houses,
those who can afford.
A winter house and a summer house.
So I thought, maybe I should do a house
which has these two
inside and outside.
Then I related the inside and outside
with continuous space
so you have a space which does not stop inside
it goes outside and comes inside
and than it goes up and it goes down
so everything is related to each other
and when you relate everything to each other
you gain a sort of harmony
when things are at their place.
When something happens there is some poetry there as well.
(Applause)
The Mother Theresa museum is in Prizren
You know, Mother Theresa's parents got married in a Catholic Church in Prizren
and they had a little plot in the front and wanted to build a museum.
So, I imagined an old Prizren house, with three floors,
and when you actually go inside
is one space.
I had this idea of making really a one space .
Is like a child dream that you can walk around up and down
because inside of the house is like someone has taken down all the floors
and emptied everything that is inside.
Turning it into an empty space.
Because, you know, architecture is not the material
is the emptiness.
It is what actually is not there.
It's the nothing.
(Applause)
I was doing a theater competition once,
and I had a guy who was producing theatrical pieces help me
make a better competition.
We lost it!
However, I understood one thing.
The guy told me "I do not need my theater to be beautiful"
"I needed to generate beauty"
"I want a theater which can help me make beautiful pieces"
I do not care if the theater itself is beautiful or not"
So, I was thinking and I realized that
(Applause)
Architecture is not the beauty
it is rather the capacity to generate beauty.
let me finish with a little story from the Venice Biennale
where I represented Kosovo.
I did a tower with "shkami" or stool in English
which is an old piece of Albanian furniture
meaning a stool and at the same time a rock.
So it shows that it is a very old thing
Probably people sat on the rock while making the stool long time ago
So it relates strongly to our tradition
but not to one specific one, but rather those of thousands of years.
So I chose this old traditional element
to make this modern instalation.
This because I wanted to show the relation between tradition and modernity.
But something happened that I did not expect.
I realized that if you would stand in the middle of it
and if you would speak
you would hear an echo coming from all sides.
And I watched the visitors who did it
and once they did it they would start to laugh.
It was so beautiful to hear your voice
as you do not listen to your self very often.
They were tired of seeing Biennale
and they would come back from the tower
with a smile.
Suddenly the tower was loosing all
its significance, all its wait
and symbolic
and became something which
could transmit instant happiness.
Thank You
(Applause)