‘Starchitects go home’: what’s the truth behind Albania’s astonishing building boom?

Sixty top architecture firms from around the world have mooted 500 eye-catching projects across Albania, sparking fury and protests.

Now they’re being celebrated in an 800-page tome that some are calling ‘a smoking gun’ Last autumn, I was sitting with a prominent architect in New York, when their phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. They finally checked the messages and chuckled. “Oh, the Albanian Architecture Army chat is blowing up again,” they said. “It looks like Edi has some new projects for us. ” Edi was Edi Rama, the prime minister of Albania since 2013, who has been presiding over the rapid transformation of the former communist country…