---
title: "Albania Invited 60 Studios. The Book Shows Who Held the Address Book"
locale: "en"
url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/albanian-files-address-book-en"
markdown_url: "https://irz.fr/en/articles/albanian-files-address-book-en.md"
category: "creative"
tags: ["architecture", "Albania", "Tirana", "urbanism", "politics"]
published_at: "2026-08-23T15:58:00.000Z"
author: "Camille Morel"
translation: "https://irz.fr/fr/articles/albanian-files-address-book-fr.md"
---

# Albania Invited 60 Studios. The Book Shows Who Held the Address Book

The Albanian Files gathers 60 firms and more than 500 projects. Read as a database rather than a coffee-table book, it reveals how architects, political power and investors meet.

A 796-page architecture book can make a great hiding place. Open it, admire the towers, waterfronts and immaculate renderings, recognize BIG, MVRDV, OMA, Kengo Kuma or Valerio Olgiati, then close it with the broad impression that a small European country has become a playground for international architects.

**The Albanian Files** becomes more interesting when treated as a file in the literal sense. Edited by Anneke Abhelakh, the book gathers contributions from 60 international studios active in Albania, around 1,500 illustrations and the work they have built or proposed since the early 2000s.[1](https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/albanian-files)

What those pages also document, sometimes unintentionally, is a network: who calls whom, who introduces an investor, who gains access to decision makers, which client appears in the project record and which one disappears from it.

At that point the 796 pages stop behaving like a catalogue.

## The starting point

The publisher's account begins after the collapse of communist rule and gives particular weight to 2004, when Edi Rama, then mayor of Tirana, invited the Berlage Institute to contribute to the capital's redevelopment under the auspices of Elia Zenghelis.[1](https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/albanian-files)[5](https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/sites/default/files/2026-04/LMP%202026%20Autumn.pdf)

That moment established a durable mechanism: bring outside architects into Albania, accelerate the break with the inherited city and give Tirana a new international image.

Over the last three decades, architecture in Albania has become an explicit instrument of national transformation, and the book records that shift with unusual intimacy; Rama, prime minister since 2013, even wrote the foreword himself.[1](https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/albanian-files)

> Illustration: Spread from The Albanian Files showing architecture projects and documents. The contributions were submitted by the studios themselves. That method gives the book an unusual documentary value because architects also describe how they arrived in Albania and what followed. Credit: [Lars Müller Publishers](https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/albanian-files).

The harder question is what “bring outside architects in” actually means.

## Direct calls

Several accounts printed in the book are unusually explicit, and this is where the promotional volume starts to read like a record of access.

Citizens.al highlights XDGA's contribution, in which Xaveer De Geyter recalls meeting Rama at the Berlage Institute in 2004; two decades later, the outlet counts 29 Albanian projects by his office, turning a memorable encounter into a long and measurable presence.[2](https://citizens.al/en/2026/06/22/ne-the-albanian-files-gjendet-shqiperia-qe-po-vizaton-edi-rama/)

Bauku describes a related path from Berlage encounters to a 2013 discussion with Rama about the “future of his mandate.”[2](https://citizens.al/en/2026/06/22/ne-the-albanian-files-gjendet-shqiperia-qe-po-vizaton-edi-rama/) Reporter.al, part of BIRN, meanwhile reports that Chris Precht says Rama contacted him on Instagram, while Alejandro Aravena recalls receiving a call from the prime minister minutes after another architect passed on his number.[3](https://www.reporter.al/2026/07/06/the-albanian-files-anatomia-e-rilindjes-arkitekturore-te-edi-rames/)

Sam Chermayeff offers an even more concrete case: in his contribution he describes a 2024 call followed by contact with Adelajda Roka, director of the Territorial Development Agency, and says two Tirana projects were proposed, one of 30,000 square metres and another of 15,000.[3](https://www.reporter.al/2026/07/06/the-albanian-files-anatomia-e-rilindjes-arkitekturore-te-edi-rames/)

Three months later, BIRN notes, a development permit was granted for **Sun Moon Star**, Chermayeff's 44-storey, 30,000-square-metre tower; the project's developer gives BIRN a different account, saying that he personally selected and invited the architect.[3](https://www.reporter.al/2026/07/06/the-albanian-files-anatomia-e-rilindjes-arkitekturore-te-edi-rames/)

The disagreement matters. A personal introduction, by itself, proves no favoritism. The accounts nevertheless make the border between architectural promotion, private development, public planning and access to decision makers unusually easy to see.

## 523 projects

Citizens.al stopped reading the project records as a sequence of portfolios and counted them instead, building a database from **60 technical tables and 523 projects** before cross-checking the material against its own reporting on construction in Tirana.[2](https://citizens.al/en/2026/06/22/ne-the-albanian-files-gjendet-shqiperia-qe-po-vizaton-edi-rama/)

The resulting scale looks different: 57 projects were classified as built, 53 under construction and 47 waiting for permits at the time of the analysis, while the fate of many others remained unclear.[2](https://citizens.al/en/2026/06/22/ne-the-albanian-files-gjendet-shqiperia-qe-po-vizaton-edi-rama/)

The least spectacular number may be the most useful: **41% of the projects do not name the client**, and seven studios reportedly chose to disclose no developer at all across their listed work.[2](https://citizens.al/en/2026/06/22/ne-the-albanian-files-gjendet-shqiperia-qe-po-vizaton-edi-rama/)

> THE ALBANIAN FILES
> **The book as data**
> - International contributors assembled by the book.: 60 studios
> - Project records used in Citizens.al's database.: 523 projects
> - Share with no named client in that analysis.: 41%
> - Enough material to read something other than an image catalogue.: 796 pages
> Sources: Lars Müller Publishers and Citizens.al.

That absence changes the question because finding out who designed a tower is easy, the architect's name being part of what the development wants to display, whereas discovering who commissioned it can take considerably more work.

## Missing clients

Abhelakh herself describes the developer as investor, initiator, negotiator and sometimes speculator. The questionnaire sent to the 60 studios included a field for the developer or client, but each office could decide whether to complete it.[2](https://citizens.al/en/2026/06/22/ne-the-albanian-files-gjendet-shqiperia-qe-po-vizaton-edi-rama/)

The editorial choice leaves a striking asymmetry: architects are named with great care, while several people and companies financing or commissioning the work remain blank.

For a book about freedom and architecture, the blanks are informative.

To be sure, a blank client field proves nothing by itself. Yet in a record of large-scale transformation across Tirana and the Albanian coast, the developer still matters because that name links architectural form to ownership, finance and the administrative decisions that make construction possible.

> Illustration: Spread from The Albanian Files showing several Albanian architecture projects. Accumulation makes the scale visible. The harder task begins afterwards: separating proposal, commission, permit, construction and completed building. Credit: [Lars Müller Publishers](https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/albanian-files).

Reporter.al reaches the same problem by another route, describing foreign architects brought in through personal calls, public intermediaries and informal networks while also recording professionals who dispute the idea that these contacts necessarily create a conflict of interest.[3](https://www.reporter.al/2026/07/06/the-albanian-files-anatomia-e-rilindjes-arkitekturore-te-edi-rames/)

## Who decides

The Albanian case is therefore more interesting than a fight between “starchitects” and local architects.

An international signature can add symbolic value to private development, while the state and its agencies hold planning and approval powers and investors need projects that are both desirable and permitted; Rama, meanwhile, has a long-standing public interest in architecture as an instrument of transformation.[1](https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/albanian-files)[3](https://www.reporter.al/2026/07/06/the-albanian-files-anatomia-e-rilindjes-arkitekturore-te-edi-rames/)

The interests can align perfectly legally. At the same time, access and selection may become concentrated in a small circle, and that concentration is worth documenting without confusing influence with illegality.

BIRN quotes a local partner of Mass Studies explaining that major projects require foreign collaboration and that investors seek those architects because the names add value to an investment; Chermayeff, for his part, argues that contact between planning institutions, architects and investors is common beyond Albania while also acknowledging the legitimacy of citizens asking for transparency.[3](https://www.reporter.al/2026/07/06/the-albanian-files-anatomia-e-rilindjes-arkitekturore-te-edi-rames/)

The answer is useful because it returns the discussion to evidence: who introduced whom, which authority approved what, and where those decisions left a trace.

## Political context

It would be tempting to paste Albania's current corruption investigations directly over the projects in the book, a shortcut that the available evidence does not support.

Reuters reported that the special prosecution office SPAK indicted Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku in December 2025 over allegations that she interfered with the award of two 2021 infrastructure contracts worth more than €200 million combined. Balluku denies wrongdoing.[4](https://www.reuters.com/world/probe-into-corruption-heart-albanias-government-2026-02-19/)

Those contracts concern a highway tunnel and part of Tirana's ring road, and Reuters does not identify either as a project from **The Albanian Files**.[4](https://www.reuters.com/world/probe-into-corruption-heart-albanias-government-2026-02-19/)

Their relevance here is contextual. In Albania in 2026, procurement, administrative power and transparency are plainly part of public debate. None of that supplies a basis for collectively accusing the book's 60 studios or all 523 projects.

The distinction matters even more because the book carries a foreword by the prime minister and frames itself around architectural freedom. The more political power participates in the narrative, the more carefully factual records, architects' testimony, journalistic criticism and judicial proceedings need to remain separate categories.

## Reading backwards

Taken at face value, **The Albanian Files** celebrates an Albania open to architects from around the world. That story is already worth telling: over two decades Tirana has become a laboratory where offices accustomed to slower processes elsewhere can find opportunities to build quickly and at unusual scale.

On a second reading, however, the book says considerably more.

It lets a reader follow an institutional address book across decades, recording architects describing their own encounters with Rama, private investors entering the story afterwards, and a surprisingly large share of project sheets that leave the commissioning party unnamed.[2](https://citizens.al/en/2026/06/22/ne-the-albanian-files-gjendet-shqiperia-qe-po-vizaton-edi-rama/)[3](https://www.reporter.al/2026/07/06/the-albanian-files-anatomia-e-rilindjes-arkitekturore-te-edi-rames/)

The book also shows the limits of architecture publishing as a transparency tool. An image can document a facade, a record can date a project and a first-person account can describe a meeting; land records, permits, procurement files and company accounts still have to do their own work.

The result is a useful contradiction. The 796 pages never close the file, but they provide enough names, dates and projects for journalists, researchers and citizens to keep opening it.

## References

1. [Lars Müller Publishers, The Albanian Files](https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/albanian-files)
2. [Citizens.al, In The Albanian Files is the Albania that Edi Rama is drawing, June 22, 2026](https://citizens.al/en/2026/06/22/ne-the-albanian-files-gjendet-shqiperia-qe-po-vizaton-edi-rama/)
3. [Reporter.al / BIRN, The Albanian Files: Anatomia e rilindjes arkitekturore të Edi Ramës, July 6, 2026](https://www.reporter.al/2026/07/06/the-albanian-files-anatomia-e-rilindjes-arkitekturore-te-edi-rames/)
4. [Reuters, The probe into corruption at the heart of Albania's government, February 19, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/world/probe-into-corruption-heart-albanias-government-2026-02-19/)
5. [Lars Müller Publishers, 2026 catalogue](https://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/sites/default/files/2026-04/LMP%202026%20Autumn.pdf)