Did you know that “Kursal Café”, one of the most popular cafe-restaurants of the first half of the XX century in Tirana, was named after the curative clinics of northern Europe?

“Kursal” Cafe used to be a European island of Tirana in the ’30s, both in terms of architecture and decor, but also for the high quality service! It was located at the place the Durrës and Kavaja streets intersect, near the former Parliament building (the present-day Puppet Theater).

The name of the cafe does not mean anything in Albanian, but if we think about it, “Kursal” finds its equivalent “kuursaal” in German, which in northern Europe is used for thermal baths and curative environments related to them.

“Of course, our “Kursal” has nothing to do with the original meaning of the word. It was built in the late 1920s and was a one-story building, with two towers in the western part, of the Japanese style. The restaurant was frequented mainly by the elite of the time, politicians, ministers, MPs, intellectuals, but also foreign personnel, accredited in the capital, as well as traders, local and foreign “, it is said by the Archives.

In 1938, in the venues of the “Kursal” cafe was opened a special salon for a modern dance school by prof. Stathi. Painting exhibitions of Albanian artists have been opened in and its surroundings. After World War II it was destroyed being considered a bourgeois heritage.

The State Archives issued a postcard image that is stored in the Photo Library of the Central State Archive, showing the “Kursal” Cafe, photographed from the terrace of the former building of the Municipality of Tirana. The plane above it is an artistic montage, to give an idyllic-modern look to the cityscape. /j.p/p.s./