From Tirana to Milan: the paradoxes of the uprising against Rama and the star architects

Albania is making headlines due to the violent clashes sweeping through Tirana. The images resemble those of youth riots in France or Italy, but it would be wrong to confuse the two. Albania is still undergoing its first major capitalist transformation since the end of communism. The protests express anger at corruption and at an economic development from which many citizens do not see the benefits.

Yet this story contains a lesson that is very close to home. To understand it, we must start with The Albanian Files: Freedom and Architecture, an illustrated book on architecture, complete with a foreword by Prime Minister Edi Rama, which recounts how Tirana has become a testing ground for the world’s leading starchitects: a celebratory book that has turned into a political boomerang. Rama was mayor of Tirana from 2000 to 2011 and has been Prime Minister since 2013; he has made urban transformation the hallmark of his government. In the foreword, Rama explains that architecture serves not only to transform spaces, but also people’s mindsets and their confidence in the future. Albania, he argues, attracts leading architects because it offers a freedom that no longer exists elsewhere. A freedom from ‘no’, from the rules and constraints that make building difficult in European countries.

The problem is that Rama’s opponents have interpreted the book quite differently – namely as a catalogue of the relationships between political power, property investors and international architects. Some architects recount with surprising candour how they came to be in Albania. Some received a message on Instagram directly from Rama, others a phone call, whilst others were introduced by people close to the Prime Minister. The Guardian reported on the existence of a WhatsApp group, ‘Albanian ArchArmy’, in which leading international architects share projects and contacts with the Albanian political establishment. The paradox is that it all takes place in the open. The Prime Minister celebrates the architects, the ‘starchitects’ discuss their relationships with the government, and the book publishes the projects and names of the investors. This is not legal evidence of corruption, but a transparent portrayal of a system in which politics, urban planning and the property sector are closely intertwined.

Of course, Tirana is an extreme case that has little to do with Italy. It is the capital of a country making up for decades of isolation and is the dominant centre of national economic and political life, almost a city-state. Rama wields an exceptionally long-reaching political influence, moving from leading the capital to heading the government (and taking with him responsibility for town planning and building permits). But ultimately, the economic mechanism is the same as that found in many European cities, including Italian ones. The institutions and the level of development may vary, but the fundamental question remains: who benefits from urban growth and who is excluded from it?

In Albania, conflict accompanies the emergence of a new market economy. In Italy, it is manifesting itself at a later stage. Our cities are already affluent and our property markets well-established. But rising property prices can become a formidable mechanism of exclusion. Milan is the most obvious example of this. House prices are rising much faster than incomes. Even those with a regular job and a middle-class income struggle to buy a home or afford the rent. For young people and those coming from families without assets, it becomes difficult even to join the middle class. This is where the housing issue intersects with that of inequality. It is not just a question of how much one earns from work, but also of whether one owns a home or inherits one. Rising property values enrich those who already own a home, whilst increasing costs for those who do not. A city can become more beautiful, international and attractive to capital, whilst at the same time becoming less accessible to those who work there.

The lesson is that we need transparent rules and mechanisms capable of returning to the community a share of the profits generated by urban regeneration. Otherwise, a backlash ensues, with one fundamental difference: in Albania, people are protesting against a model that promises to create a new middle class. Here, the risk is that that same model will end up excluding even the middle class that already exists.