After the burning of Union Hotel, the owning company of the building started with the renovation of it. €3.2 millions will be invested to renovate the destroyed building, which received the blessing of the municipal authorities in order to preserve its old architectural style. According to the owner Tafaj 3ha, it’s planned to open a “Benetton” store, ateliers and a modern bar-restaurant.

After the break, the Arassociati Architects description and project visualization.

The first consideration when drawing up the proposed design for the Hotel Union was its new character, isolated from the urban layout created by the new square, and its permanent relationships with the historical context.

The project is based not just on the functional redefinition of the building, but also its recovery through the restoration and lacing of the old façades and redesign of the sides facing the new square, reflecting the existing walls or their parallelism. By means of a modest increase in volume, limited in height to the line of the existing eaves, the design contributes to the homogeneity of the perimeter of the building, creating a sort of regular open rhomboid shaped courtyard opening out onto the public square and “Agim Ramadani” street and characterised by a pool.

Again and on the side facing the square only, there will be a new glass roof volume with soft modern lines. Together with partial recovery of the below roof floor, this emphasises the dual soul of the project, connecting the lines of the existing eaves and ridge.

The proposed design is obviously not limited to the façade alone, which could fall into the trap of the fake old, but rather sets out to promote a complete interpretation involving the layout and morphology of the Hotel Union with full restoration of its functions.

To give value to the diversity of the parts, as well as the philological restoration of the old façades in plaster and decorative stucco using the modern techniques of material restoration, an architecture of analogy is proposed for the newly freed profiles of the building, almost a stone model based on the classical order of the main façade, connected by distinctly transparent parts which also represent a testimony to the transformations of the past.

The types of intervention can be identified in both the plan and elevations, involving restoration of the existing and the congruent and architecturally relaxed reconstruction/regularisation of the new profiles and perimeters of the building. As regards the external appearance, in more detail, the project involves.