REPUBLISHED

Rama at RIBA: An award for vision or for concrete?

Erblin Vukaj · Originally published: 17 March 2026

When a prestigious architecture institution honours someone, it usually means recognition of a successful vision or a major achievement to which that person has contributed. This appears to be the case with Prime Minister Edi Rama, who was recently included among the Honorary Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

But is the model of urban development in Tirana and Albania an achievement that deserves to be studied and supported internationally? Or are we dealing with an award arising from a misunderstanding, something “lost in translation”, or, to take it further, recognition shaped by the political influence of the prime minister and the construction sector that supports him?

The contrast between the international image and everyday urban experience at home makes me think it is more the latter.

What the RIBA list is, and the Rama paradox

The British institute, RIBA, announced on Thursday, 12 March, that it had included Rama, and 26 others, in its list of Honorary Fellows.

Founded in 1834, RIBA is a long-established organization with broad international influence in architecture. The institute often names as Honorary Fellows people who may not be architects but whose work has made a significant contribution to architecture or architectural education.

In theory, such recognition means the person has positively influenced how cities are designed and developed.

But this is precisely where the paradox begins in Prime Minister Rama’s case. What is positive about the development he has pushed forward? Verticality? Gentrification? The disappearance of public spaces and historical identity?

In international discourse, Rama has presented himself as an unusual political figure: the artist who became culture minister, then mayor of Tirana, leader of the Socialist Party and, eventually, the country’s prime minister.

Rama (re)appeared in Albanian politics in the late 1990s as the independent artist and intellectual returning from abroad to contribute at home. His first public project was to “restore the identity” of the architectural features of the ministry buildings in central Tirana, a legacy of Fascist architecture.

In the early 2000s, his urban interventions as mayor became internationally known. Painting the façades of Communist-era apartment blocks, clearing illegal buildings from the bed of the Lana River and creating several new public spaces, including Rinia Park and the “Seven Dwarfs” park, were interpreted as creative attempts to bring the capital back to life amid its difficult transition.

This story spread widely through international media and architectural circles as an example of a new urban approach in a post-Communist capital.

But while this image became firmly established abroad, urban development in Tirana, and more broadly in Albania, took another direction.

“The godfather of the towers”

In the years following Rama’s first term as mayor, urban development in Tirana was marked by a wave of construction. Behind the image of a visionary liberator and reviver of public spaces, Rama swiftly embraced a major building boom, feeding it with permits for another two terms as the capital’s mayor.

He amplified this trend after moving up to national government. This is evident from the fact that in a decade as prime minister, Rama has reviewed or approved around 140 tower projects in Tirana, many of them in historically important areas and in violation of urban plans.

The result is a wholesale transformation of Tirana’s skyline, with high-rise towers now the dominant feature of its urban landscape.

Ironically, Rama’s own political transformation can be traced through his disfigurement of the very first project he undertook: preserving the architectural identity of old Tirana.

Rama disparaged and, with the full force of his power as prime minister, demolished the National Theatre building in 2020, a legacy of Fascist architecture, for the sole purpose of making way for the 34-storey “Pixel Tower” project (Bjarke Ingels/Fusha shpk) on part of the theatre’s property.

Similarly, old Tirana houses around the capital’s historic area were razed for apartment blocks and towers, some even though they held the status of cultural monuments.

This vertical transformation continued by sacrificing public spaces too. It began with the Qemal Stafa national stadium, which became Europe’s first stadium with a tower (Archea Associati/Albstar shpk) through a private-sector partnership arrangement that ultimately left only the football pitch in public hands.

The change in Rama’s urban approach is visible in the transformation of spaces that once represented his early philosophy. The “Seven Dwarfs” park, for example, once proudly displayed a plaque reading: “Opened […] on the initiative and with the support of […], Edi Rama”.

Today, that park has been concreted over by an underground parking project and the 40-storey Downtown One tower (MVRDV/Kastrati shpk), which Rama approved “with his eyes closed” to the violations committed there, and at the former Sheraton, during construction.

The “starchitects” who legitimize the urban approach

If we were to identify one defining feature of the development model Rama has produced, it would be the role of international architecture firms.

Most of Tirana’s new towers bear the signatures of world-famous architects, or “starchitects”, while local architects have remained secondary in this development, with the exception of two or three firms close to the government.

Opening up to international expertise is, of course, a good thing. But in this case, the model appears to have become an abusive arrangement in which “starchitects” are suggested by Rama and permits are conditional on involving the ones he wants.

“Starchitects”, who would find it almost impossible to build concrete monsters in their own countries without coming under serious pressure, are given free rein for their imaginations and for investors’ desire to reach the sky.

It looks like a “win-win” relationship: Rama acquires an “army of stars” who serve his public diplomacy. None of the starchitects has ever criticized Rama’s approach to development! Investors obtain their projects freely, despite all of them violating urban plans.

In the political spectacle directed by the prime minister, this relationship is presented as a kind of integration of Albania into world architecture.

“Albania produces more architecture than Europe,” Rama said last year at the first “Bukë dhe zemër” (Bread & Heart) architecture festival, which the government organized with around 150 architects from around the world.

Meanwhile, in February, at the founding of the so-called “Board of Peace” in Washington, he said that Albania could offer “architects as well as money” towards the shared aim of developing an “oasis of hope where the future can rise and take shape for the coming generations of Palestine”.

It is unclear what Rama meant by offering architects. Perhaps he meant the group of “starchitects” from the Bread & Heart festival who, after October 2025, organized themselves into a foundation and in January of this year “were offered” to Ivanka Trump at a consultation during her visit to Vlorë, as part of meetings to discuss turning Sazan into a private tourist island.

We can therefore say that the tendency to use “starchitects” creates a form of legitimacy for projects that are far more contentious than usual at the local level.

Prestigious names in world architecture create that supposedly unassailable aesthetic narrative, often shifting debate away from more fundamental questions: Who benefits from these buildings? How necessary are they? How much do they serve the city? Who assumes the risks? And how transparent are their sources of financing?

In a country where the construction sector remains in the murky waters of the informal economy and flows of criminal money, these questions ought to be asked constantly.

Rama and his government can evade them as much as they like, even through “RIBA-style” honours, but the legacy he is leaving in this regard will always haunt him.

An award for concreting over the coast, too

If Tirana has been the laboratory for Rama’s architectural model, the Albanian coast risks becoming its most irreversible chapter.

In recent years, permits for tourist resorts and large complexes have increased significantly. At the Bread & Heart festival, an entire floor was filled with such resort projects alone.

Projects are often being approved in areas of high environmental value or close to protected areas. Environmental organizations have long warned that this indiscriminate development risks destroying Albania’s principal natural assets, among the greatest of which is its coastal landscape.

The most contentious issues at present are port areas being turned into major real-estate projects: the marinas in Durrës, Vlorë and Sarandë, Porto Palermo and others.

What has yet to be digested is the scale of the resorts along the Riviera, from Karaburun to Himarë. They are struggling to secure drinking-water supplies, and the Rama government is therefore promoting the idea of taking this water from villages such as Tragjas, Dukat, Kuç and others.

At the same time, the major “Blue Borgo” project (Stefano Boeri/Gener 2 shpk), which envisages half a million square metres of construction near the Vilun wetland in Velipojë, is the next step that threatens to subject the northern coast to the same scale of building.

The tax incentives offered by the government to the “strategic investors” behind these developments have exempted them from the infrastructure tax, increasing the costs and public burden of servicing these projects.

The RIBA honour is, of course, not insignificant. It confirms that Albania has become part of an international conversation about architecture and urban transformation.

But for precisely that reason, it makes the contrast between two realities even more visible: the external narrative of a leader who has brought architecture into politics, and the experience of those of us who live here. We experience this reality as residents, not as tourists looking at a country changing rapidly, but rarely with transparency or public consensus.

In this sense, Rama’s inclusion on RIBA’s list can be interpreted in two ways: as a medal for a personal urban vision, but also as a mirror reflecting the deep contradictions of the transformation he has led in Albania.