CHRISTIE'S: When The Camera Turned Away

 

Christie’s could have pointed its camera toward Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi. It could have lingered over the painting’s surface, explained its history, or reminded viewers of its rarity and significance. Instead, the camera turned away from the masterpiece.

In The Last da Vinci: The World Is Watching, we see the faces of the people standing before it. There is no narration telling us what to feel. No performance explaining why the moment matters. We simply witness their eyes, their expressions, and the quiet emotions moving across their faces as they encounter the painting. Rather than telling us that the painting is important, the film allows us to witness what the painting awakens in another human being.

 

WATCHING THE WATCHERS

Most marketing directs our attention toward the object being presented, often accompanied by a voice, text, or music explaining its significance and telling us why we should care. Christie’s chose to do something different: it turned the camera away from the artwork and toward its visitors.

And the visitors? — They aren’t explaining art history or discussing provenance, technique, attribution, or monetary value. They are simply looking. In this very act, something unexpected yet powerful emerges. Their expressions soften, their bodies stand still, and emotions rise to the surface.

The film is powerful emotional storytelling because it does not insist upon the painting’s greatness. It trusts the visible responses of ordinary people to communicate that greatness for us.


IN THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST

In this painting, Salvator Mundi or quite literally, “Saviour of the World,” Christ faces the viewer directly, raising one hand in blessing while holding the world in the other.

Watching every one of the visitors expressions as they stand before the image of Christ, I recognize the same awe, vulnerability, contemplation, and surrender — that resembles prayer. We cannot know exactly what every visitor was thinking or feeling. But, for me, it is impossible to separate the artistic experience from the painting’s sacred subject.

This encounter becomes a moment of worship, awe, and reverence—not because the film commands us to experience it that way, but because the expressions it captures leave room for the sacred to enter.

 

WHAT HUMAN BEINGS CARRY

The film is honest, raw, and emotionally gripping.

As human beings, we all long for refuge—for someone or something greater than ourselves to tell us that we are known, protected, and not alone. Standing before an image of Christ—the Saviour holding the world in His hand—we are reminded of our smallness before the infinite nature of God: how grand, magnificent, and immeasurable He is in comparison with us.

Yet within that smallness, we are not insignificant. We are seen. We are loved. We are safe. We are invited to rest.

 

BENEATH THE STARS

During dark seasons in my own life, I often wait for nightfall.

Looking at the night sky does not change the human experience—with its hardships, joys, complexities and everything in between. What it does, however, is that it places them within a greater perspective.

However small one may feel in comparison with the vastness of the universe and the greatness of God, not one of us are forgotten within it. This is what I believe the visitors standing before Salvator Mundi — Christ as He holds the world in His hand — are experiencing.

 

MARKETING AS WITNESS

The most powerful storytelling does not dictate an emotion. It creates space for something real to be felt.

“No one has any idea what really works, how it works, why it works and that’s the interesting thing about art.”

—William Forsythe

The film does not rely upon spectacle, extensive narration, or a list of accomplishments. It showed how art can reach beyond history, scholarship, prestige, and commerce to touch something deeply private within us.

Christie’s film succeeds because it understands that genuine emotion cannot be manufactured.

This is marketing as witness. It trusts silence. It allows the audience to arrive at meaning through the expressions of another person. By turning the camera away from the painting, Christie’s captured the reason the masterpiece matters. It shows us human beings in the presence of something greater than themselves.

The film is emotionally gripping because it asks us to look at one another—and to recognize the longing, vulnerability, faith, and hope reflected in the human face. Christie’s could have shown us the masterpiece. Instead, it showed us the powerful effect art can have on human beings.

 

Evidence Of Creation: The Morgan Library & Museum

 

From everyday problem solving to a child’s curiosity to the fields of literature, sciences, mathematics, painting, dancing, and the rest – reveals the undeniable truth that all human beings are creative. 

To create means to bring something new into existence that did not exist before. It’s using your imagination or skill to build, write, or design an original object or idea. 

And if you have ever set out to create something, you know that what seems effortless in its final form rarely begins that way.

The creative journey can mean sleepless nights and blank pages. It means confronting the inner critic, facing doubt, fear, and insecurity, and enduring endless revisions, edits, discarded ideas, and moments of uncertainty before something finally begins to resemble what you imagined.

Graphic designer Milton Glaser described creativity as “a very time-consuming verb”—the process of taking an idea inside your head and transforming it into something real. If you are doing it properly, he argued, it is going to feel like work.

Even after all this, some might argue that the final product is not as important as the dedication, sheer will, and persistence to keep showing up. It’s choosing to stay committed, not shrinking away for the fear of failure and honing one’s craft.

How important is the evidence of creation?

The evidence is what remains after imagination becomes action: a painting, manuscript, photograph, sketch, campaign, object, performance, prototype, musical score, piece of writing—or even the documented process that led to it. It proves that an idea was not merely imagined. It was pursued, questioned, shaped, revised, and ultimately made real.

For an artist or creative professional, this evidence communicates ability, point of view, consistency, growth, and follow-through. But on a larger human scale, it tells us something even more profound.

Human beings make things, in part, because we want to leave traces of what we noticed, felt, understood, loved, feared, questioned, and imagined. The evidence says, in a very simple way: this idea passed through me, and I gave it form.

The Morgan Library & Museum, 2026

Photo Taken by Silvia Todhe

Original Manuscripts, Evidence of Creation

Few objects demonstrate this more intimately than an original manuscript. An original manuscript is a handwritten or typed work produced before—or during—the process of publication. It may be a letter, diary, early draft of a book, musical score, or typed page covered in an author’s corrections and notes.

Unlike a finished publication, a manuscript often preserves the process. There are words crossed out. Sentences rewritten. Margins filled with thoughts. Pages reordered. Ideas abandoned and rediscovered.

These documents preserve far more than language. They offer insight into human nature, illuminate history, and allow us to recognize familiar fears, joys, ambitions, contradictions, and flaws in people who lived centuries before us.

They also remind us that the works we now regard as inevitable—the novels, poems, compositions, theories, and images that have shaped culture—were once uncertain ideas sitting unfinished on someone’s desk.

And few institutions make that truth more tangible than The Morgan Library & Museum.

THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM

Nestled in Manhattan’s historic Murray Hill neighborhood at 225 Madison Avenue, The Morgan Library & Museum is one of New York City’s great cultural treasures.

What began as the private library of financier and collector J. Pierpont Morgan has become both a museum and an independent research library devoted to extraordinary examples of human creativity.

Its collections span illuminated manuscripts and medieval treasures, rare books and literary manuscripts, original musical scores, drawings and prints by Old Masters and modern artists, historical documents, ancient objects, and exhibitions drawn from the Morgan’s own holdings and collections around the world.

To walk through the Morgan is to encounter history not simply as information, but as physical evidence.

The Morgan Library & Museum, Photo of, Inside 2026

Photo Taken by Silvia Todhe

MORGAN, THE COLLECTOR

John Pierpont Morgan, born in 1837, was one of the most powerful financiers of America’s Gilded Age. A banker, industrial organizer, collector, and cultural benefactor, he helped shape the modern American economy while simultaneously assembling an extraordinary private collection.

His years abroad deepened his interest in European history, architecture, religion, literature, and art. Behind his formidable Wall Street reputation was a man intensely drawn to books, objects, craftsmanship, and beauty.

Morgan collected with the same ambition that characterized his financial career. He acquired rare books, illuminated manuscripts, drawings, prints, paintings, decorative arts, Renaissance objects, and antiquities on a remarkable scale.

A motto associated with Morgan’s collecting philosophy declared that “no price is too high for an object of unquestioned beauty and known authenticity.”

John Pierpont Morgan, 1837 - 1913

Image Source: The New Yorker

But Morgan was not simply purchasing expensive things. He pursued objects he believed represented exceptional moments in human creativity and cultural history.

Historian Jean Strouse estimates that in a little over twenty years Morgan spent approximately $60 million on art—roughly $900 million in the equivalent used in Strouse’s estimate.

His library therefore became something more than a wealthy man’s study. It became a private sanctuary for knowledge, collecting, beauty, and contemplation.

BUILDING THE PRIVATE SANCTUARY

In 1902, Morgan commissioned architect Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White to design a private library beside his New York residence.

Completed in 1906, the Renaissance-inspired building resembles an intimate Italian palazzo. Majestic without being enormous, it gave architectural form to Morgan’s identity as a collector.

Inside, books rise toward elaborately painted ceilings. Hidden staircases disappear behind shelves. Secret doors are incorporated into bookcases. Manuscripts, works of art, and rare volumes inhabit rooms designed almost as temples to knowledge. The building itself becomes part of the collection.

After Morgan died in Rome on March 31, 1913, his son, J. P. Morgan Jr.—known as Jack—inherited responsibility for the collection. In 1924, Morgan Jr. transformed his father’s private library into a public institution, fulfilling Pierpont Morgan’s stated desire that his collections ultimately serve the “instruction and pleasure of the American people.”

Over the following century, the institution continued to evolve. In 2006, a major expansion by architect Renzo Piano connected the Morgan’s historic buildings through a series of steel-and-glass pavilions and a light-filled central court.

Today, the Morgan exists beautifully between two worlds: Gilded Age grandeur and contemporary New York. It is part private sanctuary, part public museum, part research institution—and a reminder of what can happen when objects once held behind private doors are made accessible to generations beyond their original owners.

THE WOMAN BEHIND THE MORGAN

If J. Pierpont Morgan assembled the collection, Belle da Costa Greene helped give it intellectual shape—and ultimately helped transform it into a public institution.

Born Belle Marion Greener in Washington, D.C., in 1879, Greene came from a prominent African American family. Her father, Richard T. Greener, was the first Black graduate of Harvard College.

From a young age, Belle expressed an interest in becoming a librarian. She attended the Summer School of Library Economy at Amherst College in 1900 and later worked at Princeton University Library, developing the expertise that would eventually bring her into Morgan’s orbit.

At Princeton she met Junius Spencer Morgan II, J. Pierpont Morgan’s nephew and a librarian himself. Recognizing Greene’s ability, he recommended her to his uncle. In 1905, Morgan hired her. The decision would shape the future of his library.

Belle da Costa Greene, 1879 - 1950

Image Source: The New Yorker

MORE THAN A LIBRARIAN: BELLE DA COSTA GREENE

Greene entered a world dominated by wealthy white men at a moment when both race and gender severely limited professional opportunity.

She and members of her family passed as white and claimed Portuguese ancestry—a decision that allowed Greene to move through social and professional environments that otherwise may have been closed to her. Within those environments, she became formidable.

Greene combined scholarship, confidence, instinct, negotiating skill, and an exceptional knowledge of rare books and manuscripts. Morgan entrusted her with significant purchasing authority and the freedom to acquire important works on his behalf.

At auctions in Europe and America, she developed a reputation as a commanding presence and a skilled negotiator capable of competing with established collectors, dealers, and institutions.

But Greene’s contribution cannot be measured simply by what she acquired. She understood that a collection becomes culturally meaningful through scholarship, access, context, and use.

After J. Pierpont Morgan’s death in 1913, Greene continued to oversee the collection for his son. When the Pierpont Morgan Library became a public institution in 1924, she became its inaugural director.

Under her leadership, the Morgan expanded its role as a scholarly institution. It supported researchers, organized exhibitions, loaned objects, developed research services, and encouraged scholarship in fields that had long been dominated by men.

Her philosophy extended beyond preservation. An object had to be protected, certainly—but it also had to be studied, documented, understood, shared, and allowed to generate new knowledge.

Greene ran the Morgan Library for forty-three years before retiring in 1948. J. Pierpont Morgan is the famous name carved into the institution.

But Belle da Costa Greene was one of the people who ensured that his accumulation of extraordinary objects became something far greater than a private collection. She helped give it a future.

REFLECTION

Walking through The Morgan Library & Museum, surrounded by centuries-old books, letters, drawings, scores, and illuminated manuscripts, I found myself wondering: In a digital age, do original objects still matter?

With the press of a button, we can access extraordinary work without ever leaving home. A manuscript can be scanned in high resolution. A rare book can be digitized page by page. A handwritten letter can appear on a screen thousands of miles away from the archive that protects it.

This access matters, but the original still offers us something. It reveals the imperfections - crossed-out sentences of hesitation, handwritten notes of reconsideration in the margins, worn bindings from usage - of the person who created it.

Someone who sat before a blank page, searched for the right words, changed her mind, doubted the process, returned to it, revised it endlessly, and decided it was worth finishing.

This is why original manuscripts and institutions like the Morgan Library and Museum still matter. While history presents us with finished masterpieces – the published novel, famous composition, celebrated drawing, revolutionary idea. The archive reveals evidence of human beings trying. There is something profoundly reassuring about that.

Creativity was never just about the arrival of a brilliant idea, but the willingness to give the idea form, the long, difficult, and uncertain process, and to preserve it, leaving something behind.

 

THE FRICK COLLECTION

Background Image Source: Untapped New York by Klaus Peter Slaus

 

Some places do more than display art—they preserve the dreams, passions, and personalities of those who built them. The Frick Collection is one of those rare places.

The Frick Collection is the story of a family whose combined efforts transformed a private home into one of America’s great cultural institutions.

“Not just a museum, The Frick Collection is a living testament to how one family’s love of art continues to inspire and uplift the world,”

— Silvia Todhe

Each family member contributed something different: Henry built the collection. Adelaide protected the vision. Helen ensured the legacy endured.

Most visitors arrive at The Frick Collection expecting to learn about Henry Clay Frick and leave remembering the paintings, mansion, and collector. But what happens when the collector is gone?

Henry Clay Frick

Image Source: The Frick Collection

Adelaide Frick

Image Source: The Frick Collection

ORIGINS

Long before he became one of America’s most powerful industrialists, Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) was a young man who appreciated art, in particular - prints and sketches.

As his fortune grew, so did his artistic vision, acquiring works by the likes of Rembrant, Vermeer, Manet, and Degas. The nouveau rich Americans of the Gilded Age collected art to signal their success, and Frick was no different.

“He hated losing a painting he wanted,”

— Former Frick Collection Director, Ian Wardropper remarked.

Frick competed fiercely with other major collectors such as J.P. Morgan, Peter Widener, and Isabella Stewart Gardner. Frick devoted the latter part of his life to collecting European paintings, sculptures, furniture, and decorative arts. He viewed collecting as a form of legacy, envisioning his collection as a lasting public resource devoted to beauty and the study of art.

The story of The Frick Collection, however, is not Henry’s alone. It is the story of a family united by the love of beauty. Following his passing, Adelaide (known as ‘Ada’ to family and friends) Howard Childs Frick (1859 – 1931) worked closely with her children to oversee the transformation of the mansion into a public institution.

Henry and Adelaide’s daughter, Helen Clay Frick (1888 – 1984) showed a deep interest in art, helping catalog her father’s collection while still a teenager. After Henry’s death, she became a founding trustee of The Frick Collection, later establishing the Frick Art Reference Library, one of the world’s leading centers for art historical research.

Helen Frick

Image Source: Wikipedia

REFLECTION

Every great museum tells us who collected the art. Few tell us who preserved it. Walking through The Frick Collection, I found myself thinking not only about Henry Clay Frick, whose vision shaped the collection, but about his daughter Helen, whose life’s work helped ensure that vision would endure long after his death.

Helen Clay Frick was not the industrialist who built the collection or the founder whose name adorns the museum. She was its steward. History often celebrates those who create cultural institutions while overlooking those who ensure their survival.

After the passing of her father in 1919, Helen inherited wealth, privilege, and one of the finest private art collections in America. She could have lived her life simply enjoying what her father built. Instead, she dedicated her life to preserving, researching, cataloging, and expanding access to art.

Image Source: The TIMES

Helen understood that collecting art is one thing, but preserving it is another. Without documentation, archives, conservation, and scholarship even the greatest of collections lose their meaning and impact.

She transformed her father’s collection from a private passion into a public intellectual resource. Helen’s commitment to her father’s vision led her to create the Frick Art Reference Library, which is one of the most important art historical research libraries in the world.

We owe stewards such as Helen Frick who devoted her life to philanthropy, scholarship, preservation, and the advancement of the study of art history our acknowledgement, gratitude, and thanks.

 
 
 

An Evening with Erdem: What Does Creativity Look Like After Twenty Years?

 
 

In an industry often defined by constant change, sustaining an independent fashion house for two decades requires more than talent alone. It demands vision, discipline, curiosity, and a willingness to continue creating long after the initial excitement of success has faded.

For twenty years, Erdem has built one of fashion’s most distinctive independent houses. What interested me most that evening was not fashion itself, but the creative process behind it—the research, persistence, and imagination required to continue making meaningful work over time.

Behind every collection, exhibition, book, or work of art lies a human story: a person who continues to question, learn, experiment, and create. Erdem’s career offers a glimpse into what that lifelong commitment to creativity can look like.

 
 
 

For many, ERDEM is associated with elegance, romance, intricate florals, historical silhouettes, and garments that feel suspended in time.

Recurring themes throughout Erdem Moralioglu’s work include memory and nostalgia, historical women, forgotten lives, literature and archives, gardens, flowers, and nature, relationship between past and present, and femininity possessing both delicacy and power.

My evening with Erdem at The Met reminded me that fashion is not merely about adornment or luxury – it is about preservation, craftsmanship, history, devotion, identity, and emotion.

What unfolded was not simply a discussion about fashion, but a deeply human story about the patient construction of something beautiful.

WHO IS ERDEM MORALIOGLU? 

Erdem Moralıoğlu is a Canadian-born, London-based fashion designer and founder of the label ERDEM.

Since launching the brand in 2005, he has become renowned for collections inspired by history, literature, art, and cultural memory, approaching fashion as a vehicle for research, storytelling, and cultural preservation.

SOURCES OF INSPIRATION

Throughout his career, Erdem has drawn inspiration from an extraordinary range of cultural figures, artistic movements, and historical periods.

His collections have explored the lives of icons such as Maria Callas and Margot Fonteyn, as well as the literary and artistic world of Bloomsbury Group, the writings of Radclyffe Hall, Victorian and Edwardian portraiture, and the elegance of royal and aristocratic dress.

Rather than following trends, Erdem looks to history, literature, art, and biography as sources of creative inquiry. As a result, his work often feels less like conventional luxury fashion and more like a dialogue with cultural history—one that brings forgotten stories and historical narratives into contemporary life.

POWER BEHIND ERDEM’S WORK

Erdem approaches fashion much like a historian, curator, or writer. Many of his collections begin with a story—a historical figure, a novel, an artist, or a forgotten woman whose life he researches and re-imagines through fabric, color, silhouette, and craftsmanship.

Rather than simply creating luxury clothing, Erdem transforms fashion into a form of storytelling. His garments preserve memory, revive overlooked narratives, and bring fragments of cultural history into the present.

In this way, his work extends beyond fashion itself. Each collection becomes an act of research, interpretation, and preservation—demonstrating how clothing can carry history as powerfully as a book, painting, or museum exhibition.

ERDEM, THE BOOK

Published to celebrate twenty years of the House of Erdem, Erdem is not a conventional fashion monograph. Rather than simply documenting collections, the book serves as a reflection on the ideas, influences, and stories that have shaped Moralıoğlu’s creative journey.

Combining runway imagery, archival photographs, essays, personal reflections, and contributions from collaborators, the volume offers readers a rare glimpse into the cultural world behind the collections.

One of the most revealing observations from the evening was Moralıoğlu’s suggestion that the book is not truly about clothes at all. Instead, it is about the research, memory, literature, art, and human stories that inspired them.

As the evening ended, I found myself thinking less about fashion and more about what sustains creativity over time.

Erdem’s career suggests that enduring creative work is not the result of inspiration alone, but of curiosity, patience, and a commitment to continual learning.

In a culture that often rewards immediacy, there is something quietly remarkable about a person who continues to research, question, and create after twenty years.

Perhaps the true measure of a creative life is not how often one reinvents oneself, but the willingness to remain curious long after success has been achieved.

 

Sazan Island: Can Development and Preservation Coexist?

 

Some places possess a different kind of wealth. Sazan Island is one of them.

As an Albanian-born writer, I find myself thinking not only about the future of the island, but about the role places play in shaping our collective identity. Are we owners of beautiful places, or are we brief stewards entrusted with their care?

The conversation surrounding Sazan challenges us to consider whether progress and preservation exist as opposing forces. The answer may lie somewhere between the two.

This, however, requires restraint, wisdom, and an understanding that not everything that has value can be measured monetarily.  

In the past week, thousands of Albanians have protested the project in Tirana and along the coast, making it one of the country’s largest environmental controversies in recent years.

The Albanian government has approved a proposed development partnership involving Jared Kushner’s investment company, Affinity Partners, through a subsidiary called Atlantic Incubation Partners.

The project received “Strategic Investor” status from the Albanian government, allowing it to move through an expedited approval process.

The island in question is Sazan Island, Albania’s largest island, located where the Adriatic and Ionian Seas meet near the city of Vlore.

For decades, Sazan was a restricted military zone. During the communist era under Enver Hoxha, the island was heavily fortified with bunkers, tunnels, and military installations.

Today, it is considered one of the Mediterranean’s last relatively undeveloped islands, with dramatic cliffs, turquoise waters, and significant ecological value.

WHAT ARE THEY PLANNING?

Publicly discussed plans include luxury hotels and villas, a marina, restaurants, wellness facilities, and the adaptive reuse of some former military structures as part of an “eco-resort” concept aimed at affluent international travelers.

COMPETING VISIONS FOR SAZAN’S FUTURE

Albania’s Prime Minister, Edi Rama strongly supports the project claiming that the development will bring investments, jobs, and infrastructure to the country. Rama believes this is Albania’s opportunity to position the Albanian Riviera alongside destinations such as the Amalfi Coast, Mykonos, and Saint-Tropez.

Despite Rama’s support, many Albanians remain unconvinced that the project’s benefits outweigh its potential costs. Residents, environmental organizations, and opposing groups argue that the project risks privatizing a national treasure while primarily benefiting affluent international visitors.

Aside from the fact that the approval process lacked sufficient public consultation, critics argue that the scale of this development could permanently alter one of Albania’s last undeveloped coastal regions.

Sazan lies within a sensitive marine ecosystem with its nearby areas – Zvernec and the Narta Lagoon – existing as important habitats for flamingos, sea turtles, pelicans, and Mediterranean monk seals.

GEOGRAPHY & NATURAL BEAUTY

Looking at photographs of Sazan today, I am struck by how rare such places have become. Across Europe and the Mediterranean, coastlines have been transformed by tourism and development. Sazan remains one of the few places where nature, history, and silence still exist in conversation with one another.

Sazan Island sits at the entrance to the Bay of Vlorë, occupying a unique position where the Adriatic Sea transitions into the Ionian Sea. For centuries, sailors recognized this location as strategically important because it serves as a gateway between northern and southern Mediterranean routes.

This meeting of seas contributes to the island’s remarkable biodiversity and dramatic coastal scenery. Its steep limestone cliffs, hidden coves and inlets, rocky shorelines, small pebble beaches, hills rising above the sea, and natural sea caves carved by centuries of waves are just some of Sazan’s distinguishable features.

Having been untouched by human activity for decades, portions of the island have become an important refuge for wildlife. Its surrounding waters support the lives of dolphins, sea turtles, numerous fish, and migratory seabirds. These marine ecosystems are considered among the most ecologically significant areas along the Albanian coast.

HISTORY

For centuries, Sazan passed between the influence of empires and kingdoms that shaped the Balkans and Mediterranean world.

The Island of Many Flags

One of the most remarkable aspects of Sazan is how many nations claimed it. During the nineteenth century it was associated at various times with the British-controlled Ionian Islands, Greece, the Ottoman Empire, and eventually Italy. Its position at the mouth of the Adriatic made it a coveted military outpost.

The Italian Era

After World War I, Albania ceded Sazan to Italy, and the island became known as “Saseno.” Italian authorities built military infrastructure and settled a small civilian population there. The island even had its own post office and postage stamps.

World War II

During World War II, Italian and later German forces used Sazan as a naval and submarine base due to its strategic position at the entrance to the Adriatic.

Communist Era

After World War II, Sazan returned to Albania and became one of the most secretive military installations in the country. Initially supported by the Soviet Union, Albania developed naval facilities on the island, including submarine infrastructure. Thousands of soldiers were stationed there during the Cold War.

Under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, Albania became increasingly isolated from both East and West. Sazan became a fortress. The island accumulated bunkers, underground tunnels, ammunition depots, observation posts, and military housing. Miles of tunnels were carved into the rock itself. Many still remain today.

Several thousand military personnel lived and worked there. Families attended school, watched films, held concerts, and built a small community despite being separated from the mainland.

Nature Reclaims the Island

When communism collapsed in the early 1990s, Sazan was abandoned. The military left, buildings deteriorated, and vegetation slowly reclaimed the island. Today, the island exists as a landscape frozen in time. Visitors will find abandoned classrooms, empty apartment blocks, military tunnels, and overgrown structures next to wild vegetation.

MILITARY TUNNELS AND COMMUNIST PAST

What fascinates many historians is that Sazan is not just beautiful—it is a living relic of Albania’s Cold War history. The island contains abandoned military barracks, tunnels, observation posts, and bunkers from the communist era.

When we think of military bases, we often think of weapons and strategy. But the Albanian people lived their lives there: Children learned to read. Families celebrated birthdays. Young people fell in love. Doctors treated patients. An entire human story unfolded on an island most Albanians never saw.

When you stand inside one of Sazan’s tunnels, are you looking at concrete and stone? Or are you standing inside a place that still carries traces of the fears, hopes, routines, and dreams of those who once lived there?

Sazan may be an island, but in many ways it is also a living archive—one that contains layers of Roman, Venetian, Ottoman, Italian, Soviet, Albanian, and human history all at once. And that is what makes it far more than a beautiful piece of land.

Some advocates hoped it would eventually become a preserved historical and ecological site rather than a luxury resort.

WHERE BEAUTY AND HISTORY EXIST SIDE BY SIDE

What makes Sazan remarkable is not any single chapter of its story, but the accumulation of all of them.

Roman sailors, Venetian merchants, Ottoman administrators, Italian soldiers, Albanian families, Cold War military personnel, environmentalists, tourists, investors, and citizens have all attached different meanings to the same piece of land.

This remarkable place reminds us that landscapes are never static. They evolve with each generation while preserving traces of those who came before.

The island is not beautiful despite its history – it is beautiful because nature has slowly reclaimed it.

CAN DEVELOPMENT AND PRESERVATION COEXIST?

Only when development serves a place can preservation and progress coexist. When people hear “preservation,” they often imagine freezing a place in time. When they hear “development,” they imagine progress and economic opportunity.

The High Line in New York or Tate Modern in London are two of history’s most notable projects to have successfully recognized these two seemingly opposing forces. Rather than erasing the past, their histories remained visible and their purposes were given new life.

A development that removes every trace of the island’s military history, restricts public access, or significantly damages its ecosystem would destroy the very qualities that make Sazan unique.

As someone who works in museums and cultural institutions, I encounter this principle regularly: historic houses are restored with modern climate systems, museums add elevators and accessibility features, and historic districts adapt buildings for modern-day routines.

The challenge is determining where stewardship ends and transformation begins.

reflection

Maybe the real question we should be asking ourselves is not whether development and preservation can coexist, but whether we possess the wisdom to allow them to.

Too often, preservation asks us to look backward while development urges us forward. Yet places such as Sazan remind us that our responsibility is to do both simultaneously.

We are not just inheritors of landscapes, but temporary stewards of them. The decisions we make today will determine what future generations encounter tomorrow: a living record of history, a thriving natural ecosystem, and a place of enduring beauty or a memory of what once existed.

The most successful developments are not those that transform a place into something entirely new. They are those that recognize what is already there and choose to build in conversation with it.

Progress need not erase memory. At its best, it can become one of the ways memory endures.