The Albanian Files Puts 500 Starchitect Projects on Record as Protests Grow in Albania

A new book has put Albania’s architecture boom between two covers, and the result is being read in very different ways. The Albanian Files: Freedom and Architecture, published by Lars Müller Publishers and edited by Anneke Abhelakh, gathers more than 500 projects proposed across the country by 60 international practices. The Guardian’s architecture critic Oliver Wainwright describes the 800-page volume as both a celebration and, for critics of prime minister Edi Rama, a dossier of evidence.

Rama, who has led Albania since 2013 and first drew attention as a mayor who painted Tirana’s grey housing blocks in bright colours, wrote the foreword. He calls the book a behind-the-scenes record of a transformation and says foreign architects are drawn by a “freedom from ‘no'”. According to the Guardian, much of the coordination among these firms happens in a WhatsApp group that includes some of the best-known names in the profession.

Coastlines, dunes and a national park

Many of the schemes in the book sit on undeveloped land. MVRDV proposes a mirrored hotel spanning a gorge at Gjipe, a bay widely regarded as one of the last untouched beaches in southern Albania. In the protected dunes of Rana e Hedhun, Álvaro Siza’s masterplan climbs a hillside and includes a cable car, Valerio Olgiati shows a cluster of concrete towers on the beach in Lezha, and Xaveer De Geyter has drawn a trio of towers in the shape of the letter M for Saranda’s harbour. Anupama Kundoo is planning what is described as a laboratory town for 50,000 residents within Divjakë-Karavasta national park.

Several of these projects depend on a 2024 law that allows five-star resorts in protected areas. An EU report criticised that law, together with 2015 rules that favour “strategic investors”, and a European Parliament resolution in June called for a moratorium on new permits and construction in protected areas. Rama defends both laws as a balance between conservation and economic development.

“Starchitects go home”

The book was launched in June at a festival in Tirana, titled Landscapes of Abundance, where tickets cost as much as €200 against a median monthly wage of roughly €700. Protesters gathered outside with placards reading “Starchitects go home!”. The event came weeks after nationwide protests began against a resort planned for the Zvërnec nature reserve and Sazan island, a movement that the Guardian says has now continued for more than 120 days.

Local critics focus on how projects are awarded. The Albanian architects’ group Arkitektët Shqiparë, which keeps its own online database of the schemes, says a narrow group of foreign architects receives work without competitive procedures. The investigative platform Citizens.al reports that more than 40 percent of the projects in the book do not name a client and that several are linked to ongoing investigations by SPAK, Albania’s special anti-corruption prosecutor.

Rama’s office called the allegations “hearsays” and the prime minister has said that competition juries are independent. The Guardian stresses that there is no suggestion any of the architects named have broken the law. The one architect who replied to the newspaper said their work in Albania would be permitted in any other country, while adding that the freedom on offer brings a greater personal responsibility.