Edi Rama’s plan to transform Albania through architecture, including the construction of a luxury resort in a natural area, has caused public anger to be directed at him. Now Dutch architecture firms have also come under scrutiny.
By Kirsten Hannema, De Volkskrant
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“It will be Albania’s gift to Europe,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said in an interview with the British newspaper The Observer, speaking about Ivanka Trump and her partner Jared Kushner’s project to turn the untouched island of Sazan, off the Albanian coast, into a luxury complex with ten thousand hotel rooms.
The article appeared on May 22, just one day before protests erupted in the coastal village of Zvërnec against the plan, later spreading to Tirana. Since then, the capital has seen continuous and large-scale demonstrations.
The discontent is not coming only from environmental defenders, who fear protected species, including flamingos, will disappear. Criticism has also widened to the culture of construction as a whole and the political system that supports it.
“Albania is seen as a paradise for architects to experiment, a playground, much as Rotterdam once was,” architect and curator from Tirana, Elian Stefa, told The Architect’s Newspaper. “But do all these experiments align with what people want? Many feel that the identity of the capital is changing without their consent.”
Dutch firms
Several of the Netherlands’ best-known architecture firms are also building extensively in Albania, including OMA, known among other things for the Kunsthal in Rotterdam and the headquarters of China’s state television, as well as MVRDV, known for the Markthal and the Depot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
These studios are part of the “Arch Army,” as Rama calls the well-known foreign architects he has gathered around him to reshape the country, with the aim of European Union membership.
While serving as mayor of Tirana from 2000 to 2011, the Socialist Rama, an artist by profession, gave color to the gray buildings of the communist era and launched international design competitions.
After becoming prime minister in 2013, he continued with other projects, such as transforming dictator Enver Hoxha’s Pyramid into a multifunctional complex for young people, designed by MVRDV.
The Rotterdam-based firm also designed the Skënderbeu building, which depicts the head of national hero Gjergj Kastrioti. However, some people say they see Rama’s own head in it.
In recent days, anger has also turned against this “army of architects.”
The trigger is the book The Albanian Files, an eight-hundred-page publication featuring projects by sixty foreign architecture studios, edited by the Dutch editor Anneke Abhelakh.
The strongest reactions have been caused in particular by the contribution of Reinier de Graaf, partner at OMA.
He sent Rama an open letter suggesting elections should no longer be held, so that the “enlightened patron of architecture” could remain prime minister for life, “perhaps even as king.”
The letter, published by Tirana Times, was meant as irony, but some took it literally, and it became fuel on the fire for Rama’s opponents, who are demanding his resignation.
Out of nowhere
“This does not come out of nowhere,” says Albanian architect based in the Netherlands, Dorina Pllumbi. “Until now, flattering stories in the foreign press about the projects star architects are building here have helped keep critical voices silent.”
“What is happening now in Tirana is that citizens are organizing and making their voices heard,” adds her colleague Klodiana Millona. Both architects have taken part in demonstrations in recent days. One group of protesters had even brought a concrete birthday cake for Rama, who turned 62 on Saturday.
According to Pllumbi and Millona, The Albanian Files has brought a great deal of accumulated anger to the surface.
That anger is linked to the fact that foreign architects receive all the opportunities to build, while Albanian studios are treated as “local fixers.”
It is also tied to disappearing nature and to the National Theatre, which was bulldozed while activists were still inside, to make way for a new theatre with a tower, based on a design by the Danish studio BIG.
Anger also extends to towers where many apartments remain empty, at a time when the average rent in Tirana is rising and existing family homes are being demolished.
This also raises suspicions about the financial flows behind construction projects.
Various international reports have described Albania’s construction sector as a hotspot for corruption and money laundering.
SPAK, Albania’s special anti-corruption prosecution office, is investigating how Jared Kushner’s projects have been developed.
The book shows that Rama is directly involved in selecting architects for the projects.
Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena writes that he had received a message from a colleague, “asking whether he could share my number with the Prime Minister of Albania.”
“I said: of course. Five minutes later I was contacted by the prime minister to ask whether I could come to Tirana to discuss a possible project.”
He won the closed competition for a 300-meter skyscraper to be built in the capital.
Refreshing directness
Winy Maas of MVRDV praises “Albania’s openness to new ideas and willingness to take risks.”
“Prime Minister Edi Rama’s belief that architecture is an essential part of the country’s future sets the tone. The way projects are handled shows a refreshing directness,” Maas says.
On June 4, the day the book was presented, Rama gave an interview to CNN regarding the protests against the plans for Sazan island.
He said the resort project would prove how nature and construction can go hand in hand, and he held up the book The Albanian Files to the camera.
“This is proof that it will be done properly,” he said.
Included in the book are various holiday resorts, among them a complex in the coastal town of Dhërmi (Drymades), with white Mediterranean apartment buildings designed by the Rotterdam studio Cityförster.
Editor Anneke Abhelakh says she is surprised by all the attention.
“When I started the book, I thought I was documenting a period. Now I realize that documentation itself can become part of the story it records. This debate shows there is a need for more transparency about how this development has taken place.”
She calls it “significant” that the same book was given by Rama to French President Emmanuel Macron as an example of Albania’s transformation, while protesters are using it as a criticism of his policies.
“This is not a contradiction, but an indication that this story is not over yet.”
Abuse of power
Belind Këlliçi, a Democratic Party MP, sees the book as evidence of abuse of power and illegal practices in construction. He is calling for an investigation to verify how, according to him, foreign architects have benefited from major public projects in Albania.
Reinier de Graaf believes Rama “began Albania’s great transformation with sincere intentions” and that good projects have also been completed.
As an example, he cites the Mangalem 21 housing project, which he built in Tirana. It consists of 1,200 medium-rent apartments set in multicolored blocks around green squares.
However, in recent years he has seen “a process of concentration of power.”
“Initially we presented projects to the municipality. After a legal change in 2024, we now report to the state agency AZHT, which answers directly to the prime minister.”
With his letter, he said he intended to raise debate about the relationship between architecture and power; he often writes on this subject and irony is his trademark.
“Irony is a tool for being critical without automatically risking never working anywhere again or ruining everything,” De Graaf says.
His studio is currently working on the transformation of Selman Stërmasi Stadium in Tirana, where two towers are planned to be added to the stadium.
Rama responded to the controversy over the book on the Flasim podcast.
He said that “the text has been misinterpreted and used as part of an ‘inquisition’ against the publication.”
According to him, De Graaf’s letter shows precisely that space for criticism exists.
Because of all the reaction, last week De Graaf published a second letter in Tirana Times, clarifying that the first letter was satire.
Pllumbi and Millona do not attach much weight to that explanation.
Millona says: “In Albania, we have understood for a long time that architecture and power are linked to one another.”
