Empty Towers: Inside Tirana's Crazy Construction Boom

The Albanian capital is experiencing (and suffering from) an extremely rapid urban transformation, involving major players in contemporary architecture. Against all logic, prices have exploded, while most buildings remain empty.

By Francesca Barca, Federico Caruso

The center of Tirana is packed with people, cars, bicycles, scooters, and a wide range of architectural forms.

During rush hour, the area is so packed with traffic that it's hard to gauge the width of the boulevards. Architectural styles from different historical periods come together, but it's the many skyscrapers that stand out – all new, all imposing, all more or less attractive.

These are the projects of the so-called “archistars”: names such as Stefano Boeri (best known in Italy, for the Vertical Forest in Milan), Marco Casamonti, the Dutch studio MVRDV, and the Belgian studio 51N4E.

These are big and prestigious names, building innovative and environmentally conscious projects, or at least that's what they claim.

These names are being used by Prime Minister Edi Rama to add a sense of legitimacy to the latest wave of developments, says Erblin Vukaj, a journalist for the independent media outlet Citizens.al, as we stand at a crossroads that is emblematic of this perspective.

We are in the central district of Blloku, where our walk begins in the company of Vukaj and his colleague, journalist Elira Kadriu, between Brigada e VIII Street and Vaso Pasha Street.

The same area includes small villas that probably belonged to party leaders during the socialist regime (1944–1991), buildings built after the fall of the regime, and more imposing structures such as Stefano Boeri’s “Cube of Blloku,” the headquarters of Banka Credins designed by Albanian studio Atelier 4, and two other skyscrapers under construction, designed by Marco Casamonti’s studio.

A large banner attacking the government's construction policies hangs from one of the oldest buildings. A little further away, Vukaj points to a building that is about to be demolished to make way for another tower. There is no sign of parks or bike paths in the surrounding area.

Behind this imposing architectural facade, however, there is a void. According to data from the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), in 2023 one in three apartments in Albania was unused.

In 2024, journalist Ola Xama reported that there were over 85,000 empty houses in the province of Tirana, 52,000 of which were in the capital. At the current rate of population growth, “it would take 45 years” to fill these apartments, Xama explains.

This figure is much higher than in the previous census (2011), when one in five (21,6%) apartments was unoccupied.

Behind these figures lies a country that is emptying: between 2011 and 2023, Albania lost almost 500,000 people.

However, construction continues unabated. In 2015, permits were issued for the construction of new residential buildings covering an area of ​​50,000 m2; in 2022 this number increased, more than 40 times, to 2.071 million m2, and this trend has only continued in the following years.*

Increased supply, coupled with a decrease in demand, would be expected to cause a decrease in prices. On the contrary, house prices have continued to rise, while the same cannot be said for wages.

In Tirana, according to data from the Bank of Albania, house prices increased by 5,1% in the first six months of 2025, and by 32,6% on an annual basis.

In 2011, an apartment in the most central areas of the city could cost between 700 and 2,500 euros per square meter; today, the range has changed to 2,500–4,500 euros per square meter.

The average gross monthly income in Albania is around 82,000 lek (850 euros). In January 2026, the monthly minimum wage was increased from 40,000 to 50,000 lek (518 euros), making it the country with the lowest minimum wage in Europe after Moldova and Ukraine.

In Tirana, it is now very difficult, if not impossible, to find a two-room apartment to rent for less than 600 euros.

The construction euphoria was caused by a policy initiated during the mandate of Mayor Edi Rama in the period 2000–2011 – who became prime minister in 2013 – by the Socialist Party, and then continued by his successor and party colleague, Erion Veliaj (now in prison on charges of corruption and money laundering).

In 2017, the Tirana 2030 urban plan was approved – 2030 is the year in which Albania aims to become a member state of the EU. Designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti, the plan introduces the idea of ​​vertical development to free up space for squares and green areas, and to ease traffic through the development of public transport and bicycle lanes.

Unfortunately, reality is very different from architectural visualizations.

Italian urban plans for Tirana

“The Tirana 2030 Plan has opened the city to construction and densification,” explains architect and researcher Dorina Pllumbi, who has reflected on this issue at length."Before, buildings could go up to seven floors, nine at most." Today, the tallest completed building is the 40-story Downtown One, but this is expected to be dwarfed by approved projects exceeding 70 stories.

"There was no care for the historic buildings," Pllumbi continues, “"There were beautiful villas that were demolished without any scruples. The city is changing at a very fast pace and people have trouble recognizing their neighborhood and neighbors."

While gentrification is a phenomenon already known in many European cities, in Tirana it has a different nuance. We are used to seeing cities lose parts of their population to make way for another social class or perhaps even tourists – but the case of Tirana is different. Who is the city being built for?

“My impression is that Rama wants to change the face of this city, to 'leave his mark,'” Vukaj told us as he showed us the city center. "It's an ego problem – no real urban planning, no care for aesthetic balance, destroying our collective memory. All while facilitating money laundering.”

Accusations of money laundering came up in all the conversations we had in Tirana, but no one provided concrete evidence.

Last September, a report was published by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation with the emblematic title “Money Laundering in the Real Estate Sector: Its Impact on Socio-Economic Life in Albania.”

The report, based on data that cannot always be verified, estimates that corruption and tax evasion in Albania have generated "at least 8.168 billion euros in revenue for the period 2015–2024", mainly in the construction sector.

“In recent years, the real estate market in Albania has produced a situation that cannot be explained by the normal mechanisms of a free and competitive market,” the report states.

“Real estate prices have been increasing at a faster pace over the past 10 years, especially between 2021 and 2024. Theoretically and logically, such a price increase, while the supply in the market increases, occurs when the market is influenced by factors so powerful that they distort the typical relationships between demand, supply and price.”

Nearly a century ago, in 1925, a development plan for Tirana's city center was launched, involving Italian architects and urban planners sent by the fascist regime.

The names of Armando Brasini and Gherardo Bosio are well known in this city. Walking down the street, it is not at all a challenge to recognize the architectural style of that period, in the Prime Minister's office, the Piazza Mother Teresa (formerly Piazza Vittorio Emanuele III) or the Polytechnic University (formerly Casa del Fascio). All were designed by Bosio, and are located just a few steps from each other.

Today, history is repeating itself, and not without a certain irony, as Vukaj points out. For Dorina Pllumbi, this is a form of “a kind of colonialism, […] not in the classical sense, of course, but a softer ‘coloniality of power’ that operates today between countries.”

During our conversation, Pllumbi refers to an “internalized inferiority” that Albania has developed towards foreigners, especially “Westerners.”

An example of this phenomenon is the pavilion at the 2025 Venice Biennale. Dedicated to Albanian architecture, it was curated by Swiss scholar Anneke Abhelakh and included everything except contributions from Albanian architects.

The pavilion was titled "Building Architecture Culture", "As if there was no architecture in Albania, as if there was nothing there, as if everything was a tabula rasa."

At the end of our walk, Vukaj shows us some visualizations from the Bread and Heart architecture festival to give us an idea of ​​how unrealistic these real estate projects are.

The experience creates the impression that the city, as well as the country itself, have become a "game" for the creativity (and portfolios) of architects and builders.

Prime Minister Edi Rama has stated that the latest wave of architectural development, with the opening of the market and the entry of foreign investors and designers, is about "the return of individualism" for Albanians. This is rhetoric that Dorina Pllumbi strongly rejects:

“In Albania, there is a resistance to talking about collectivity and collectivism because it’s like, ‘oh, we tried that. It was a disaster. We failed.’ And now there is no other way but to move towards individualism. What I try to do with my work and other scholars and activists, including the ATA group, for example, is to challenge this dominant narrative. What our parents experienced was actually state collectivism. The state used the ideology of collectivism to impose its power over the population, over the country, and over every aspect of daily life. But the communitarian and more authentic ways of organizing the collective self also suffered, as they were absorbed and captured within this big ideological umbrella of state collectivism. For this reason, we need to practice these more authentic ways of claiming the city, not as a totalizing force coming from above, but as everyday collective acts.”

The "muscular" approach to urban development imposed by the Socialist Party is changing the face of the city, but it is not solving its deep-rooted problems.

Pllumbi gives the example of the water tanks visible on the facades of all the houses, which indicate the frequent water shortages in the city. For Pllumbi, this is a “permanent protest.”

"If a planner really wanted to look at the problems in the city, it's so obvious. If you don't address traffic, if you don't address services and everything that people need to live in a normal city, then you haven't done much."

The resources to resist this process are lacking: "Protests have been very rare here. Because that's what they teach us: don't go to protests. That's why we deal with the past.""

Arnen Sula is an activist with the organization "Tek Bunkeri", which manages a space in the center of Tirana where film screenings, debates, concerts, and theater workshops take place, all focused on processing the country's shared past and reflecting on the history of the dictatorship.

It should also be noted that protest movements took place in Albanian universities in 2018–19, and a significant mobilization was carried out in an attempt to save the National Theater.r in Tirana, which collapsed in 2020.

The association currently has a lease on a villa surrounded by taller buildings. The activists do not know how long they will be able to stay. "Our contract expires in two years,"Sula says, "and we don't know if it will be renovated, because the owner wants to build something higher. We invested a lot in this place, it was all mud when we came."

SThe only hope, he tells us with bitter irony, is "that the prime minister goes to prison for at least five years so that the construction stops and we can survive here."

Europe in 2030

In this context, for many Albanians, membership in the European Union is "the only way," according to anthropologist Nebi Bardhoshi, whom we met in Kamza, a town seven kilometers from the capital.

Of course, Albanians are under no illusion that EU membership solves every problem. "We recognize the weaknesses of the European Union, we are not naive," Bardhoshi continues.

"People on the margins are never: they have a perspective that allows them to see society differently. At first glance, they are considered inferior, but their perspective is much more real."

"We want to become part of the European Union,"Sula repeats. "We were promised that we would do this in 2030. But I don't think it's possible for us as a society – we're not prepared. Even at an institutional level."

Sula sees two main obstacles: the unresolved issue of transitional justice, which is related to how the socialist regime is remembered and treated, and corruption, which is “very massive.”

Dorina Pllumbi shares this view:

“The EU could be another imposition of power, but it could also be the opposite. It could be an opportunity for, let’s say, another level of political engagement. However, in practice, we see that the EU often seems to have lost its compass with its own principles, so I don’t know if you can place that much hope in the European Union. If Albania ends up as a colony of these great powers, which very often seems to be the case, as was the case with the construction of detention centers for immigrants in Gjadra, then we are doomed. But if we, beyond the politicians, pay serious attention to democracy and our voice and position are taken seriously, then I would say it is an opportunity for Albania.”

This article is part of the project PULSE, and is part of a series on “peripheral” areas in Europe, in collaboration with Il Sole 24 Ore , Transeuropa OBC, and The ConfidentialWe would like to thank Elira Kadriu nga Citizens Channel for her support in the production of this report.

This article is also part of a series of three reports from Albania:

• Empty towers: inside the crazy construction boom in Tirana
• Building a “collective desire”: near Tirana, Kamza tells the history of Albania
• 5st of May

From

In 2015, permits were issued for the construction of new residential buildings covering an area of ​​50,000 m2; in 2022 this number increased, more than 40 times, to 2.071 million m2, and this trend has only continued in the following years.*

in

In 2015, permits were issued for the construction of new residential buildings covering an area of ​​50,000 m2; in 2022 this number increased, more than 40 times, to 2.071 million m2, and this trend has only continued in the following years.

Citizens.al