Denada Jushi
Tirana, with its yellow facades and buildings built by Italians, villas from the time of King Zog, or balconies with arches in the Austro-Hungarian style, seems to remain only in photographs.
Architect Doriana Musai says that historic buildings are being systematically replaced with new constructions without contextual sensitivity and without connection to the urban space of Tirana, which is simultaneously losing its physiognomy and historical memory.
Tirana is losing its face and its memory. And with it, we are losing the city we knew.
"I don't recognize Tirana anymore"
This change is not simply a consequence of time or progress. It is a silent, well-thought-out policy, a strategy of abandonment to justify the collapse.
When a historic villa is left to the mercy of time, without any restoration investment, it begins to fall into disrepair. Then, with a technical decision in the hands of experts, it is declared “a valueless object” and loses its protection status. Years ago, some of these villas caught fire…
What surprises you case after case is then, as if by magic, the land turns into a construction site.
A new city is being born, but without memory and without roots.
According to Law No. 27/2018 on Cultural Heritage, an object loses its status if it no longer holds the values for which it was declared as such. But this is a closed process, invisible to the public. The decision is made by a small number of experts and officials, without discussion, without consultation, without a trace. One signature is enough to remove an object that has lived for a century from protection.
Of course there are cases of natural degradation, but the terrain shows that we are dealing with more, with a programmed degradation. A policy of erasing memory through forgetting and inaction. The most typical case was that of
National Theater. .A building that belonged to the capital's heritage, designed by the Italians in the 30s, which hosted historical and cultural events for almost a century, was demolished in 2020 in the name of "development." The ruins that demolished the Theater despite protests and resistance are still fresh in our memory.
For Urbanist Doriana Musai, the process was fast, closed, and the case of the National Theater is an emblem of this practice, reflecting a closed and vertical decision-making model, where the state is the only actor and does not take into account the community or alternative evaluation of urban heritage.
According to a Citizens Channel investigation during 2020–2021, historic villas on Tirana streets such as Dibra, Blloku, Kont Urani, and Pazari i Ri have collapsed or lost their status. In 2015, there were 299 cultural monuments in the Tirana region, 123 of which were villas. By 2021, 37 had lost their status, 35 of which were within the city.
Sinjalizo contacted the Institute of Cultural Monuments (IKTK), which says that only four objects have officially lost their status from 2021–2025. But the terrain shows the opposite. Half of the protected objects are now abandoned. They are hidden behind scaffolding and construction sites. Apparently for “reconstruction”, in reality for the silent collapse that awaits them in the future.
Lorin Kadiu says that institutions have sealed the destruction of cultural monuments. Neither the IKTK nor the Ministry of Culture has allocated any funds for the maintenance of cultural monument villas, at least in the last 5 years from the moment of Citizens Channel's observation, but even today the situation seems the same,
Tirana, a city of spectacle
Law No. 107/2014 on Territorial Planning promises protection for heritage, but the General Local Plan of Tirana (TR030), approved in 2017 and revised in 2019, considers many of these areas as development zones. So, the state itself gives permission for demolition in the document that is supposed to protect the city. This is a contradiction, which has brought precisely this chaos with the loss of the status of cultural monument and protection that these buildings had.
Urban planners talk about a Tirana that is becoming "a city of spectacle", but it is more than that. Tirana is losing all traces of the city it used to be.
Tirana is a city that is being sterilized in the name of profit. It is being built not for people, but for consumerism. Not with a concept for the future, but with the quick money calculations of the present.
Tirana cannot be just a building space. It must also be a place of memory. Without memory, there is no identity. And without identity, there is no city.
As an old maxim says: the city was not bequeathed to us by our parents, but we owe it to our children!
