Marubi National Museum of Photography

Front entrance of studio "Dritëshkronja" in 1939 with an outside sign "FOTO MARUBBI".

From a Studio to an Archive and later a Museum of Photography

Italian Pietro Marubbi came to Albania in the second half of the 19th century. After passing the country from South to North, he moved to Shkodër. In that period, the city was flourishing and becoming an important center thanks to economic and cultural exchanges. Maybe the atmosphere in the city, encouraged him to start the art of photography and open his first studio.

As Pietro's first adjutants were the sons of his gardener Rrok Kodheli from the area of Zadrima who later continued the art of photography. His two sons, Mati Kodheli, who died at a very young age and his younger brother Kel Kodheli, went to Trieste in the “Sebastianutti & Benque” studio to learn the mastery and secrets of photography. Kel followed the path of his master, Pietro in the same field inheriting the studio and also his surname. The studio was continued by his son Gegë Kodheli (Marubi) who attended photography courses for some years and later the school for cinematography and photography of the Lumière brothers in France. What we note in the three generations of photographers is their desire to be contemporary and adapt to the time and the context from a socio-esthetic and technological point of view. In the same period, in Shkodër other photography studios were opened, most of them from the Marubi students. Here we can mention Dritëshkroja e Kolës (1886), Fotografija Pici (1924), Foto Jakova (1932), Foto Rraboshta (1943).

The Marubi atelier preserved its originality for over one century, but in the beginning of the 1950s it was handled to the communist anonymity joining other photographers in a cooperative. In a time when all private activities were prohibited, the last of the Marubi found it impossible to use, promote and preserve the work he and his predecessor had done, so in 1970 Gegē Marubi donated the family archive to the state. Other photographers of the city ateliers did the same. These photographers who were children when they studied in the “Dritëshkroja Marubi” became part of the Phototeque, not as students, but as authors of their own photography collection. The new Marubi Phototeque, a section of the City Museum administrated by the Municipality of Shkodër, was founded from an archive of almost half a million glass negatives. From 2003 the archive is under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Culture.

On May 9, 2016, the Marubi National Museum of Photography was inaugurated with the collection of the Marubi Phototeque.

The museum is organized on both floors of the building and is supported by the other two spaces next to them. The Marubi National; Photographic Museum has four interconnected parts with different functions but complementing one another.

• Temporary exhibition (ground floor): hosting exhibition organized each year by the museum
• Library and videolounge (ground floor): a space within the Museum which provides the visitor with supplementing information about the photographic archive and the exhibitions. For this purpose, different methods are combined in order to transmit by video, audio and books, the information displayed on the museum. The library provides information about the history of photography in Albania and in the world, Albanian photographers and the art techniques of photography. Touchscreens, integrated on glass windows in front of the courtyard provide access to information which otherwise is not available on the museum exhibitions.
• Permanent exhibion (first floor): organized around three thematic rooms related to the three members of the Marubi dynasty: Pietro Marubbi, Kel Marubi and Gege Marubi. Their biography is put into context with important events of Albania and the city of Shkodra
• Street exhibitor:  The museum goes beyond the borders of the building through its street expository which is used to promote the museum, the activities inside the museum and to draw the interest of numerous passersby walking on the main promenade of the city. The themes to be exhibited on this street expository will relate to the temporary exhibitions that will be organized in the museum.