Today’s post is a scan of the 1983 book Mobiliet dhe Estetika e Banesës [Furniture and the Aesthetics of the Home] by Eduard Guxholli. This slim volume offers a comprehensive overview of the components and arrangements of domestic space in late socialist Albania. It analyzes the relationship of furnishings to apartmental architecture, considers the optimal proportions and arrangements of furniture, and offers a series of projects allowing readers to create furnishings for their own homes.
Guxholli (also the author of a book on famous artists, Mjeshtër të Pikturës [1990]) does not provide a long history of the development of interior furnishings, but instead focuses on practical matters. He lays out the prevailing standardized models of apartments in socialist Albania, and suggests how different pieces of furniture may be grouped and distributed throughout the rooms of apartments. He considers the emotional impact each space should have: “the living room should create the feeling of comfort and warmth, the guest room [dhoma e mysafirëve] that of welcome, the kitchen that of cleanliness, the bedroom the feeling of calm, and so forth” (p. 14).
Evident throughout Guxholli’s text is an emphasis on the rational arrangement of modern space as a key aspect of domestic comfort and productivity. Published in the 1980s, a period when socialist Albania had cut off most of its prior ties to other socialist nations, the emphasis on self-sufficiency– educating readers on how to create their own furniture to match their standardized living environment–is particularly noteworthy. Although produced during the final decade of Albania’s socialist period, Guxholli’s book provides a glimpse into the project of socialist modernization, and specifically the effort to provide Albanian citizens with the knowledge to function as socialist citizens, optimizing their surroundings in the spirit of modernity’s emphasis on efficiency and productivity. Often at the forefront of Guxholli’s considerations are those to do with avoiding waste (either in the form of material or space). He is also, however, concerned with personalization, and the avoidance of monotony (the perennial accusation raised against socialist material culture by its critics). 
This text will be of interest to scholars of socialist architecture, material culture, and domestic space in socialist Eastern Europe. It will also be of interest to those broadly concerned with the implementation of modernist rationalism in socialist contexts.
This scan comes to us thanks to Kreshnik Merxhani, who tracked down a copy of the book.
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