Anna SHKRELI-
We do not always need to destroy old buildings to build new ones. Sometimes we just need to revitalize them.
This is how Berk came to life.
This house is located at ‘Him Kolli’ street, nr.13, was build circa 1910-1920.
It belonged to my great-grandmother. Before that this house was the site of the Gestapo in Tirana.
Houses like this, built out of clay and bricks, were diminished, and perceived as less valuable than the Italianstyled villa’s. We are here to prove the contrary: these houses belong to a much larger architectural movement
carried on in anonymity and were not so show-off-ish.
The facades were kept to themselves, the gardens were internal, in plain contrast with the buildings used by the
administration in Zog’s era.
Now this house is Berk and Berk is not only a publishing house: it’s a concept, a philosophy.
For many a book can be the only physical object connecting them to a multitude of perspectives. But for some
there needs to be a space which aligns imagination and a physical site where people can discuss about their
likes and dislikes. Berk is just that.
This building could have been anything but now is a publishing house, a cultural space, an intellectual site where
people can meet and explore new ideas. We, of course, focus on publishing and try to not exclude anyone. Each
of those who are published at Berk have had/have their own truths at a certain moment in history and we are
here to bring newer and more in-depth perspectives.
We have many ideas on how to develop in the future and we are leaning towards a more to experimental
process of work, especially regarding typography. Another task is to further raise the stakes in the curatorial
sector of book publishing. We are in XXI century; publishers need to know their gatekeeping feature, and focus
more on quality content.
Berk is now one year old and already is a community, growing everyday through books and readers.
