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Gheg-Albanians as well as Tosk-Albanians consider a distinct tower-house type of their traditional heritage. The closer look upon the structures in their geographical distribution from the Dukajin plains in nowadays Kosovo into the Dropull valley in Southern Albania provides a wide range of variations. Generally those structures served as impressive residential houses (banesa) for rich landlords, warlords, tax collectors and merchants performing a ruralurban lifestyle. Therefore, a sophisticated blend of the all-time defendable Albanian tower house (kulla), still existing quite intact in the western Kosovo plains, and the comfortable Turkish lifestyle influenced residence was developed during the long centuries of the Ottoman rule over Western Balkans. In the later 19th century, within the important trading towns of the southeastern Balkan Peninsula also Western European ideas of National-Romanticism seemed to have led to the transformation of the rural kulla type of the Dukajin plains into the totally urban kullat of Gjakova and Peja. With the distinct knowledge of the widely renowned Albanian interdisciplinary craftsmanship of masons and carpenters, well organized under master craftsmen for the planning and contracting -, stunning and sophisticated building structures were successfully erected on most difficult morphological sites, fulfilling different wishes of their multi-ethnical clients all over the Ottoman Empire. Additionally to the solid and earthquake resistant stone basements, light-weight construction methods of plastered wooden lath (bondruk-technique) for upper floors guaranteed an expanded climatic comfort for the hot seasons and avoided heavy damage in the seismic emergency case for the quite high-raised houses. The article tries to trace the different cultural influences transforming the original stone-tower houses probably kept for a long time in their Mediterranean-Medieval original configuration over the course of the times. Besides, the 19th century Austrian descriptions give a deeper insight into the usual workflow of the craftsmen troops from the Dibra region, responsible for the mason – carpenter structures, the gypsies (Egyptians), which they contracted for the metal work and the stone mason specialists from the Adriatic coast, who were in charge of specific fortification features.

The Traditional Tower Houses of Kosovo and Albania -Origin, Development and Influences