From parking to a museum and sunken plaza: Rama’s initiative, the companies behind the design, and questions about traffic, public participation and the historic axis.
Overall view of the proposed square. AI-assisted editorial illustration based on sheet A46 (PDF page 9). Source: TOWER / iGROUP / Albanian Development Fund (FSHZH).
The Albanian Development Fund has named Progeen and Bami Holding as preliminary winners for the new structures at Mother Teresa Square in Tirana, Albania, with an offer of approximately ALL 1.63 billion excluding VAT, or about €18 million. Four competitors offered lower prices. But the file raises more than the question of who will build: it also identifies who designed the intervention and how they were selected.
Barely a year after the square was promoted through Chris Precht’s “Tirana Moons” open-air library, the next project proposes three underground levels and a public square sunk four metres below the existing surface. This time, the technical documents name Tower and iGroup. They had won the design procurement before Precht’s installation was inaugurated.
The square’s transformation has a clear political trail: Rama announced the underground-parking direction in February 2025, while the 2026 decision on the expanded programme was adopted on the Prime Minister’s proposal. The central question is how that initiative became this particular design, and what opportunity the public had to influence it.
Four cheaper bids but not four disqualifications
The winner notice is dated 21 October 2026 and was published by the Public Procurement Agency on 23 October. It opens the appeal period; it does not announce a signed contract. The procedure is open, with a planned construction period of 26 months.
The trade-register records identify the construction winners’ direct owners: the QKB trade-register extract for Progeen dated 30 July 2026 lists Genc Kuçuku with 100%, while the Bami Holding extract dated 21 July 2026 lists Besnik Bami with 100%.
Among eight bidders, Alb-Star with StarTek and 4 A-M offered lower prices than Progeen with Bami Holding, but received lower scores. Agi Kons and the Ferro Beton–Nova Construction Group consortium also offered less and were disqualified.
According to the evaluation committee, Agi Kons declared the same personnel and equipment in another procedure where it belonged to the winning consortium, with overlapping delivery periods. Once those resources were deducted, it did not meet the minimum requirements. For Ferro Beton and Nova, the committee counted one drilling rig against the required two, and two surface concrete vibrators against three.
The tender documents allocate 60 of 100 points to price. The remainder concerns organisation and personnel, guarantees, and site safety and impacts.
The lowest price therefore did not automatically guarantee victory. That makes the explanation of the remaining scores essential: what additional benefit justifies paying more?
Who secured the design commission
The answer about authorship is not found in the builders’ names. The Public Procurement Agency’s bulletin of 7 July 2025, on pages 549–552, names Tower and iGroup as winners of the mini-competition for designing underground parking at Mother Teresa Square. Tower held a 60% share of the consortium and iGroup 40%.
The two design companies have the same owner in the late-2024 records. Tower’s extract dated 9 December 2024 lists Irdi Kulla as sole shareholder; for iGroup, QKB data published by AIS/OpenCorporates Albania, updated on 14 December 2024, likewise identify Kulla with 100%.
Their offer was approximately ALL 10.83 million excluding VAT, or about €111,000 at the exchange rate of 7 July 2025. This is the successful offer for design services, not the cost of the construction now being procured. This document, too, is a winner notice opening the appeal period, rather than the signed design contract itself.
The mini-competition lists 13 bidders, twelve of whom offered the same amount as the winner. The notice identifies that amount as the minimum design fee under the applicable tariff manual. Read in that context, matching prices are not themselves evidence of an agreement among competitors.
Tower and iGroup received 286.56 points; the Archispace, i RI and Sphaera consortium received 286.47, at the same price. The difference in the published table is just 0.09 points.
Such a close result makes the evaluation reasoning particularly important. Understanding the architectural choice requires more than the final ranking.
The procurement took place within the development fund’s framework agreement for design services: a pool of companies selected to compete later for individual assignments. The 48-month duration belongs to that framework, not necessarily to the square’s design assignment. This procedure alone does not establish whether there was an open architectural ideas competition with alternatives and a jury’s reasoning presented to the public.
The framework documents allocate 50 points to price and 50 to the technical proposal in mini-competitions. The technical half concerns staff, methodology, experience and an initial design solution where requested.
The question is not simply whether a qualified company was selected. It is also which alternatives were considered for one of Tirana’s principal spaces, who defined the programme, and what analysis supported this solution. A winner notice cannot substitute for that public explanation.
From a car park to a square on two levels
The technical report names the Albanian Development Fund as commissioning body and Tower and iGroup as its preparers. Its cover bears Enton Derraj’s electronic signature, dated 26 August 2026. Architectural sheets A38–A53 explicitly identify Derraj as the design team’s architect, not merely a signatory.
They also list the specialist engineers and administrator Irdi Kulla. The package documents a technical team, without attributing the entire concept to one individual.
The proposal is not simply a car park covered by an unchanged square. It creates a public space four metres below the present level, connected to the surface by ramps, stairs and connections between levels. The programme provides for approximately 170 parking spaces, an archaeological museum, a chapel and service areas across three underground levels.
The designers argue that placing most functions underground avoids large above-ground volumes and preserves the axes, views and visual dominance of the surrounding monumental buildings. Their position should be represented accurately: they do not present the scheme as replacing those monuments, but as adding functions without competing with them in height.
Keeping façades visible, however, does not automatically preserve the square. A continuous open space is being redesigned around a deep cut, stepped seating and routes on different levels. From a critical perspective, the risk is that a shared civic square becomes the entrance courtyard of an underground complex.
This concerns urban character, not simply a preference for particular renderings. That transformation must be tested against the obligation to preserve the historic composition.
There is also a difference in the stated programme that warrants explanation. The 2025 mini-competition named the design of underground parking; the 2026 report describes a broader cultural and public programme. The public needs clarity about when, by whom and through which documents that programme was defined.
The current construction tender, meanwhile, ends with the designation “Structures”. It cannot automatically be equated with delivery of an equipped, operational museum and every service shown in the design. The public needs to distinguish this phase’s cost from subsequent phases and operating expenditure.
The phase-V brief requires the construction contractor to develop the execution design further within eight weeks, in accordance with the technical project. Changes require the contracting authority’s approval.
The brief refers to approved technical projects, but that wording does not identify a particular heritage decision. Responsibility therefore continues beyond the selection of Tower and iGroup.
Traffic moves below ground it does not disappear
The project pedestrianises the surface, but does not remove traffic from the junction. The technical report and circulation scheme transfer it to an underground ring at minus 7.75 metres, with parking in the centre. The through-route remains separate from access to parking spaces.
Three two-lane ramps are proposed: one to the north, along the boulevard axis between the Presidency and the Palace of Congresses, and two to the south, connecting with Lek Dukagjini Street. The plans also retain an east–west connection through the ring without requiring vehicles to enter the car park.
At the boulevard’s southern end, Lek Dukagjini Street links the Frederik Shopen Square side with the space in front of the Polytechnic University. Eastwards, the route continues through the Italia Square area to Faik Konica Street and towards Rruga e Elbasanit. The Grand Park lies behind the university building.
How would the ramps affect traffic approaching from the Tirana e Re neighbourhood and access to the park area?
The documented change is therefore not the severing of connections, but the replacement of surface circulation with a system dependent on ramps and underground routes. Pedestrians may encounter fewer vehicles in the square, while the impact of traffic shifts to the entrances, exits and surrounding streets.
The published report promises efficient operation but supplies no measured traffic flows, peak-hour load calculations or queue modelling. The scheme shows where vehicles would go, rather than demonstrating how it would perform under actual traffic conditions.
A full assessment should show capacities, effects on junctions and integration with public transport. Without an accessible account of those impacts, the promise of a pedestrian square remains detached from how the surrounding boulevard will function.
Political direction and the public’s place
At the 12 February 2025 presentation, Rama announced that the square would become part of the major underground-parking programme. A year later, the decision of 27 February 2026, adopted on the Prime Minister’s proposal, assigned the underground museum, parking and square rehabilitation to the Albanian Development Fund.
This documents the political role in setting the project’s direction. What still needs explaining is the route from that direction to the full programme: which alternatives were compared, and how was the transition from parking to a museum, chapel and cut through the square’s surface justified?
There was parliamentary debate about the museum on 7 May 2026, documented by MP Ina Zhupa and reported by Shqiptarja.com. But a parliamentary question-and-answer session and government presentations are not equivalent to a process in which citizens and professionals examine alternatives before a decision.
The technical report and procurement notices present the selected solution, but do not document which alternatives were put to the public, what proposals were received or how they influenced the design. Citizen participation should be verifiable through such records, not inferred merely because the project has been announced.
That is the central criticism of this decision-making approach: the project becomes legible through political announcements and procurement documents, while citizens’ role in choosing it remains unclear. Announcing a solution is not the same as openly discussing whether it should be chosen.
The library that was intended to move
Precht’s intervention has a different financial and institutional history. The notice of Tirana Municipality’s contract with G.A.C., signed on 10 March 2025, records approximately ALL 34.5 million including VAT, or about €350,000 at that date’s exchange rate. This is the amount contracted with the implementation company, not a documented payment to the architect.
G.A.C. lists Klodian Alimadhi as sole owner in its QKB extract dated 9 December 2024.
The technical specifications identify studio precht and UDV Architects. “Tirana Moons” was inaugurated on 11 October 2025 as an open-air library and place to spend time in the square. Yet the contrast between “a library was built” and “it is now being destroyed” omits an essential fact: the installation was presented as movable.
At the October inauguration, Edi Rama said the installation would be relocated and a larger project with underground parking would follow. By then, the parking designers had already been announced as winners in July.
This chronology does not support the idea of an unforeseen project suddenly overtaking the earlier investment. It raises a more concrete planning question: how much public use justified a temporary installation, what will relocation cost, and where will its elements be reused? Movability counters a claim of inevitable destruction; it does not fully answer the question of value for public money.
Precht from Rama’s invitation to the portfolio
In the interview included in “The Albanian Files”, Precht recounts that Prime Minister Edi Rama sent him an Instagram message asking whether he was interested in working in Albania. The January 2026 profile dates his work in the country from 2019.
The studio’s file lists 29 project entries at different stages, from the “Eden” garden at the prime minister’s offices to hotels, residences and development studies. The count includes masterplans, competitions and other projects, not 29 completed buildings. It also includes Albania’s exhibition stand in Dubai, so it does not describe 29 structures physically located in Albania.
Recurring partners show that this presence also rests on local professional collaborations. ABGA Studio appears as Albanian partner in ten entries and UDV in eight, overlapping in five. Dhimitri Papa is listed as consultant in eight.
Kastrati appears as key constructor for three commercial projects, Fusha for “Eden”, and G.A.C. for “Moons”. These are the roles declared in the table, not proof that the same names are investors or owners.
Precht’s account of a personal invitation from the head of government gives his professional entry into the Albanian market a political dimension. It does not prove that the government awarded every project, that private commissions were secured politically, or that the architect has a party affiliation. Critical reporting must follow each commissioning body and procedure rather than substitute presumed proximity for evidence.
In the interview, Precht connects the work to “the vision of Edi Rama” and his “army of international architects”, while welcoming the development boom. But he also calls for protection of natural assets and resistance to overbuilding. The tension between those positions matters: architecture promoted for its quality must also be assessed through the quantity, location and consequences of the development it enables, not simply the designer’s name.
One example is “1000 Islands”, the 16-building development near TEG that its website credits to Studio Precht. The National Territorial Council decision of 29 May 2023 names Agro Blend Group as developer of the Lundër project. Its QKB extract dated 30 September 2024 identifies Fiqiri Ismaili with 70% and Hava Ismaili with 30% of the company.
At Mother Teresa Square, this distinction is essential. Precht is associated with the earlier installation; responsibility for designing the new intervention is documented through Tower and iGroup. Attention to the international name must not obscure the designers and institutions determining the next change.
A historic axis not a series of construction sites
The square has changed before. On 17 July 2014, Panorama reported the decision to remove and level the fountain, quoting the head of the Institute of Cultural Monuments. According to that report, the fountain was a 1980s addition, not part of Bosio’s original design.
The new technical report identifies its former site as a paved platform.
The current protection regime should not be explained solely through memories of the earlier ensemble. Government Decision 582/2018 includes the square in Tirana’s Historic Centre. It requires rehabilitation of squares to preserve the urban composition and provides for review and approval by the National Council for Tangible Cultural Heritage for underground-infrastructure interventions.
The 2026 decision requires the fund to apply for permits; it is not itself a building permit or heritage approval. Legal protection does not freeze the city, but requires change to preserve the designated values and follow the relevant procedure.
The 2018 rules also cover Dëshmorët e Kombit Boulevard. A statutory protection plan therefore exists; what needs explaining is how the new intervention fits a long-term vision for the entire axis, rather than only the use of the square’s plot.
Preserving a historic axis cannot be measured solely by whether the surrounding buildings remain standing. It includes spatial continuity, the relationship between monuments and public open space, movement, and the cumulative effects of successive interventions.
In this sense, the square raises a wider criticism of how Tirana changes: projects are presented one after another, leaving the public to understand their relationship after the political direction has been announced. A prime minister’s vision and architects’ names cannot substitute for a public argument about the city that will remain.
In a square like this, transparency cannot begin and end with the winner’s name. The public needs to understand not only who will excavate, but who decided what should be built, what will be preserved, and why this is the most appropriate solution for a shared space.