REPUBLISHED

Bjarke Ingels in Petrelë: the “Park of Faith” over the ancient site of Përsqopi

Erblin Vukaj · Originally published: 13 October 2025

A consortium of studios led by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels was selected on Sunday to draw up the master plan that will transform part of the hills of Petrelë into the so-called “Park of Faith”.

But, like many recent government initiatives, this intervention too was pushed forward without transparency or clear development objectives. Meanwhile, part of the project overlaps with the Përsqopi Protected Area, one of Albania’s most important sites of Illyrian heritage.

The selection followed a competition announced in March by the Albanian Investment Corporation (KISH) and the National Territorial Planning Agency (AKPT). Thirty studios submitted concepts, 12 of which qualified for the second stage and were presented this weekend.

The project that won the jury’s confidence was submitted by the team headed by Bjarke Ingels in collaboration with SON Engineering & Construction, Future City, Edoardo Tresoldi, Arton Poro, Systematica, Zyhdi Teqja, RWDI Anemos and Imam Gazmend Aga.

The jury had 13 members, including Prime Minister Edi Rama himself and representatives of the organising institutions, Adelajda Roka of the Territorial Development Agency (AZHT) and Elira Kokona (KISH). It also included curator Anneke Abhelakh, who represented Albania at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.

As in KISH’s other competitions, the winning team and four finalists received awards totalling 200,000 euros.

A new project with an old idea

The concept of a “Park of Faith” is not new. During the Rama government’s first term, this was the name of the international competition held in October–November 2015.

The competition, which envisaged a mosaic of parks, mainly along “Dëshmorët e Kombit” Boulevard, was won by the Dutch studio UNLAB. Their concept turned the Pyramid into an embassy of European culture, with offices and spaces for public events interwoven with a wide variety of greenery.

But their project was never implemented. Instead, the government and Tirana Municipality shifted their priorities, and the Pyramid was handed to another Dutch studio, MVRDV, which transformed the building into a space with an entirely different concept, completely eclipsing the earlier idea.

Today’s park concept, ten years later, covers 21 hectares of the hills of Petrelë near the Erzen valley, according to the competition-winning team led by Bjarke Ingels. The area is envisioned as a space bringing together the symbols of Albania’s five religious faiths in one place.

The project aims to create themed paths reflecting elements of sacred texts, from places of worship to plants with religious significance, with all routes converging on a “Museum of Memory” dedicated to victims of religious persecution during the dictatorship.

The park is expected to contain 100 structures described as “welcoming shelters”, as well as spaces for events of up to 500 people and restaurants offering the traditional food of each religious community.

The project also includes thermal baths and ecological areas, aiming to welcome around 30 thousand visitors a year. At the presentation of the winning project, Prime Minister Rama called the initiative a “source of national pride” and said “there should be more than one such park in the country”.

In Albania, Bjarke is known for the design of the new National Theatre and the Pixel Tower (in the city centre, Fusha shpk) and Gateway Tower (at the bus terminal, Pajtoni Group). The experience of his projects has not been particularly friendly to the public interest.

The return of the “Park of Faith”, but in an area outside the capital, in the hills of Petrelë, raises questions about the purpose of this urban approach. If the aim really is to strengthen the country’s cultural and religious identity, how was this site selected, and do the hills of Petrelë really embody that purpose? Why not the hills of Krujë, for example, Laç, Berat and so on?

There could, of course, be many arguments, but the criteria for excluding other areas were not clear in KISH’s call. Nor were the guarantees for protected areas or the assurances that the land would not be used for commercial purposes.

In this respect, Petrelë is a sought-after area for residential investment, close to areas extensively developed through projects of this kind, such as the Mjull-Bathore-Lundër-Mullet area.

The dark side of the park idea

KISH, which led the process of developing the 21 hectares in the hills of Petrelë, has become one of the government’s most powerful instruments for managing and developing public property through partnerships with the private sector.

To date, KISH has opened 16 calls, some of which Citizens.al has covered extensively in articles and analyses.

Most of the calls, bypassing parliamentary scrutiny and accountability, have lacked transparency over the evaluation and decision-making processes for granting the use of state assets at risk of appropriation by private interests.

Something similar appears to be happening with the “Park of Faith”. Thus, after sport – where every stadium in Albania’s major cities is expected to include towers – the government also appears to be turning the “spiritual dimension” into an incentive for development projects, projects that mainly enrich the portfolios of starchitects.

Without public debate or consultation with the local community, KISH has included eight privately owned plots, covering 4.5 hectares, in the proposed park site.

The owners could, of course, be subject to expropriation or compensated for restrictions on their ability to develop the land. But the formula KISH has used so far, partnership with the private sector, does not assure residents that nobody else will profit from their properties in future through the master plan to be drawn up by the consortium of studios led by Bjarke Ingels.

The most serious concern, however, involves the impact on archaeological heritage.

The competition documents acknowledge that part of the proposed territory overlaps with the Protected Area of the Ancient Walls and Tomb of Përsqopi, one of Albania’s most important Illyrian sites.

This area contains the ruins of the ancient city of Përsqopi (Brysaka), a settlement dating to the fourth century BC which, according to archaeologist Neritan Ceka, was a residence of the Illyrian king Glauk and a disputed childhood refuge of Pyrrhus of Epirus.

Përsqopi contains cyclopean walls several metres high, a monumental tomb, the remains of dwellings and an ancient water-supply system: a rare archaeological complex which, experts say, requires strict protection from any large-scale construction or tourism intervention.

Yet safeguarding the site was left to the competition participants themselves, without any legally binding heritage protection protocol. Such an approach risks turning archaeology into a decorative feature of an urban project, diminishing it under the pretext of “interfaith harmony”.

Without transparency over financing, ownership and legal guarantees, the “Park of Faith” remains more an aesthetic narrative than a credible development project. After all, the idea from 10 years ago was left forgotten on paper. The same is likely to happen with the second version.

But, given other precedents, in which various public spaces have become construction sites benefiting private interests, the Petrelë project leaves the same outcome open. In this context, the question for the future will be how much of this park will belong to the public and how much will serve another cycle of urban development without accountability?