MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY GJON-MILI

Created in 2018 in a beautiful yellow house in the town center, this museum (Muzeu i Fotografisë Gjon Mili) brings together 240 prints from the collection of Albanian-born American photographer Gjon Mili (1904-1984). Born in Korça, he worked for the prestigious photojournalism magazine Life (1883-1972). Gjon Mili is famous for his stroboscopic technique of capturing different phases of movement. A whole series of personalities from the arts and sports were captured by Gjon Mili, including Pablo Picasso, Jeanne Moreau and Sophia Loren. For 500 leks, you can have your portrait taken by Gjon Mili. The building that houses the museum is one of the city's most emblematic. Built in the neo-Roman-Byzantine style, it is the "Romanian House" (Shtëpia Rumune), erected in 1928 for Tashko and Aleksandra Ilo, a Korça couple who emigrated to Romania and brought the national anthem written by Albanian poet Aleksander Stavre Drenova back to Bucharest in 1912. At the turn of the ^20th century, Albania and Romania enjoyed close ties. Bucharest was a hotbed of the Albanian "National Renaissance". It was also to Romania that Gjon Mili emigrated at the age of 5, before leaving to study at MIT in the USA at the age of 19. The museum and restoration of the house were financed by the Trans Adriatic Pipeline company, whose gas pipeline runs just south of Korça, linking Greece and Italy.