Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the presentation of the project for the “Skanderbeg”:
Hello to everyone!
This is perhaps the first activity of the Tirana City Hall I am attending, not because I didn’t want to attend the other activities, but because this time it is about an activity whose the importance of which is without exaggeration tremendous, since this has to do an extraordinary intervention and transformation in the heart of Tirana, which is the heart of Albania but also the heart of the Albanians. This has to do with a not passive rather creative continuation of a project started years ago, and for the fulfilment of an ambition, I believe a legitimate one, to give Tirana a square that, within the space of the square inherited by the totalitarian period, will offer all of its residents, but also to all visitors, a firm point of reference.
It has happened often these days of our national project of the Urban Renaissance to be criticized, just because we are transforming the city squares. It is being criticized on the short-sighted grounds that people need other things; people do not eat squares; people do not have economic benefits from the squares, and so on.
There is just one case in the history of mankind, that the government and the decision-making to fund the development of the community development was focused not on the city centres but on the electoral asphalt. And this unique case is that of transitional Albania the mentality of which culminated badly with the previous government. Otherwise, throughout the history of humanity, wherever a settlement was established, settlers would build in the first place a square. Wherever people have gathered to live together, whether in a big city, or in a small village, they have started from the square.
The square is the identity of a settlement and the identity of a community, and it is the point of reference of the individual in relation to others. The square is the place that transforms a group of individuals into a community. The square is the place that allows families living within the walls of their houses to interact with each other. The square is the place that allows the children of a settlement to perceive each other as part of their own lives.
A city without a square, such as Tirana, is in fact a city without a community, a city whose identity has been hit right at its heart. Instead of a square, we have been provided a hastily solution to ensure the crossing of vehicles and a crossroads where people have nowhere to stay even for a second and meet, because they have to run to cross the road, while cars are waiting in line to go ahead.
Ahmet Zog asked Armando Brasini in 1929 to draft the regulatory plan of the centre of Tirana and presented him an ambition which was entirely out of sync, if we refer to 1929 Tirana, when critics and jokers of the progress of that time defined the boulevard by Armando Brasini a cathedral in the desert. In his culturally narrow world, but sufficiently rich due to his instinct to progress, Ahmet Zog gave Armando Brasini this assignment: “I want you to build a miniature of St. Peter of the Vatican”.
It certainly made the famous architect laugh, but it paved the path for an ambition that was completely out of sync. The project assigned to Armando Brasini was completely unrelated both with the modest revenues of Albania, with the immediate needs that people had back then, and with the perception that the elite of that time had about what Albania needed in that period. That project was the reflection of the vision of a man, about whom many unpleasant things could be said, but about whom nobody can say that he didn’t have the special instinct of a visionary leader for his country.
Then it was time to have concrete plan of the square, in the midst of Brasini’s axis, starting from the university until down here, where today it is extending further. There, another Florentine architect, Florestano de Fausto, drew a square that was out of every dimension that could be conceived as normal for Tirana of that time.
Ahmet Zogu, despite all those who criticised him from near or from afar back then, paved the way for the construction of the square. That square, which was entirely conceived in the spirit of the neoclassicism of that time, with reminiscences of the entire totalitarian structure of how architecture was conceived, remained during the 50 years of communism a wasteland populated only by the big rallies for the death of Stalin. Or it was used by the party who gathered people to convey messages in an attempt to survive the apocalypse of social imperialism and imperialism, and later, in our transition where, all the squares inherited from the past, but not like the square of Tirana coming from a more distant past than communism, turned in parking lots, in degraded areas where people would just move from side to side, and where nobody would stop.
The squares of Korca, Elbasan, Lezha, and all the squares across the country were transformed into the filthiest and most unpleasant environments that were a meaningful display of the lack of vision for urban and community development. In fact, our squares, among which the square of Tirana was the most meaningful mirror, reflected the aspirations of the poverty of aspirations to build the cities of democratic coexistence.
Tirana, which brought extraordinary transformations as a result of the enormous demographic changes, became a city whose heart remained a pit, an empty place without identity and without ambition. In fact, it reflected the profound contradiction between the ambition of all those people who came to Tirana to build their America, and the ambition of their policy that never looked beyond the coming elections.
The fate of Tirana, unlike that of other cities, is that Tirana doesn’t need to build a square from scratch. Tirana just needs to democratize a space conceived long ago by two famous architects, brought here by Ahmet Zogu.
We started this project precisely with this ambition: democratize the vision which is there, and transform the space we inherited in a space where the past, the present and future will coexist with each other, and where whoever becomes part of that space for an hour, a day or a lifetime, will get the sense of where they come from, where they are and where they are going.
There is no doubt that the Alpha, the inalienable priority to having such a space, is that this square cannot be for vehicles. This square cannot be there for a vehicle passing by in order to go from one side to the other, but this square should be for the people who choose to go there. This square cannot be a crossroads, but it should be a meeting point with history, the people and the reflex of the ambition of this community and this country for the future.
This is what a square has always been used for, since when the people built the first settlements and until they built up the great metropolis. This is what has made them build the squares in Paris, London, Rome throughout the centuries. This is what makes today communities, through their elected officials, to revisit the squares of the past and adapt them to the immediate needs of today, so that the city will not strangle the people, but instead to establish between the people and the city a balance which cannot be kept by just one square. If the square cannot keep this balance, the city will have no balances.
Today, I believe that it was fortunate for Tirana that that square was sabotaged. Today we have the opportunity to bring it to another level, as it happened with the plan of the square that was revisited after 10 years that provided a square with a new balance between the stone and greenery.
There is a saying that goes: “Within every cloud, there’s a silver lining”. The work that was started and then stopped, is still there, in the underground.
The whole of the underground infrastructure of this square, which is in fact not just a flat space, but it is also a kind of machine to provide power, water and so on to the entire surrounding infrastructure, would not have been fully successful hadn’t it have all the new green spots that have been added to the square, taking into account the temperature changes and the need for more balance.
On the other hand, the square is a proper political act to set in stone an open declaration of war against the vehicles. Every time the mayor speaks, he rightly tries to confront the anger of drivers, but I think this should be approached with greater aggressiveness, no matter how much people at the traffic light get angry. I am fully confident about what I am saying, because my car respects every traffic light, so I know very well what it means to be stuck in traffic. Nobody can come and tell me: “This doesn’t apply to you because you take other roads”. I also have been stuck in traffic, and this is part of the price we have to pay for being more privileged than those who don’t have a car. As a more privileged person, you cannot claim to trample on a right that should apply to pedestrians in the first place.
If we go today to Paris, to London, we will see that in all cases, even if a pedestrian is outside the white lines and is trying to cross the road, the cars will stop. It is the tax of the privilege.
There was a marathon for autism a few days ago, and I saw some privileged people, who have also the privilege that others don’t, to hold a microphone and a pen, who immediately created a fuss because they got stuck in traffic and were late. As if people were looking forward to breathing their poison half an hour earlier. This is unacceptable! It is completely unacceptable. It is the expression of the provincial arrogance of those who call themselves part of the elite in this big village of ours. Nothing more! Provincial arrogant people who cannot wait even the necessary time it takes to consider that the inner ring of the city is being built to facilitate the traffic tomorrow. No research will even show that vehicles can cross the city centre where roadworks are being carried out.
This was the most banal argument used to justify the most stupid intervention ever done in the history of the Albanian town planning. We have seen many such stupid interventions. For instance, the one made to build the racetrack in the very centre of Tirana, where Skanderbeg sitting on his horse would look like those former policemen standing at the square to give direction to the cars, there was once a policeman there in the middle of the square. They transformed Skanderbeg in a traffic policeman of a racetrack where vehicles crossed the city square.
Generally speaking, I think I have acquired an ability to justify any shortcomings of our country and our society when I have to deal with the cynicism of foreigners, but I could never find any excuse anytime I have heard the question from people, architects, urban planners and artists visiting Tirana: “What is this? And this one?” Such questions leave you speechless. What would you tell them? Bernie Ecclestone himself would have never dreamt either of finding a city hall run by some provincial arrogant people who would allow him to build a racetrack in the city centre and put in his statue with a Ferrari in the grass. Had they at least put there Bernie Ecclestone. No, they left Skanderbeg there, alone in the middle of the grass, as if he were the supervisor of the municipal police forces.
What is noteworthy today is that the quality of the project has improved greatly. It is a project with not just a perfect balance, 50% greenery and the other 50% without greenery, but inside the square conditions are created for a lot of things to happen. There are 8 gardens, not kindergartens, but the outdoor gardens where children, the elderly, families can spend their time, not waiting for the car to cross the street so that they can to the other side of the road before the other car comes.
In addition to these 8 gardens, in my view the progress consists in the fact that we are in front of a vanguard town planning, because the trees that will be planted here are not just ordinary trees, but are trees coming from all over the country. So, trees from all over Albanian will be planted in the square of Albania. This way we will have a botanic garden in the city square. This is fantastic! I hope it will work out for every tree from a technical point of view, because I can imagine how hard it must be for some kind of trees to be planted here and face situations with which we are accustomed.
The former idea for having a square that is the surface of a special mosaic with stones from all the territories of Albania, in the country and abroad where Albanians live, does still apply. With abroad, I mean the region, because there are Albanians living also in Rome, but we cannot take stones from Rome or New York. We will take stones from Kosovo and from all over the region, and these stones will pave the square as a mosaic.
There is a considerable number of species that will give it a fantastic look, not just symbolically, but also because it is a unique urban area.
Likewise, the cohabitation between water and the stone, and the combination of the solid mirror with the mobile aqueous mirror will create a fantastic microclimate in the square, whenever people will want to spend there their afternoons. Of course, the square is an open stage. It is an open stage for daily activities, temporary ones of all kinds, where anyone can perform their own show. A community, a school, a group of visitors, a singer who thinks people don’t understand him, and therefore they do not give him access to the great stages, and so on.
Finally, the square of Tirana is the brightest jewel in the crown of the National Program of Urban Renaissance, which is actually bringing in Albania a transformation that is not just physical, but a cultural transformation. It is giving cities the opportunity to physically relate to the European identity of this country.
I don’t know how many of you have visited Librazhd, but who would dare to say that that city of Albania was in Europe? The conditions in which it was, with its square built in the communist period and which had become a big parking lot. Whereas today, although it is a city that still has a lot of problems, has in its very heart the space of a European settlement.
The impact of this program, in addition to being an economic one in the strict and immediate sense of the term, is a long-term social and economic impact.
Otherwise, how can the multiple tourism growth in Korca be explained? Today, you cannot think of spending a weekend in Korce without booking. And this applies not only Korca, but also to Pogradec during peak seasons. And this, because of Korca. What was that created this situation? Korca has always been there. It was the Urban Renaissance. And how come that revenues of Berat have multiplied? And those of the “Onufri” Museum? Was it a sudden cultural gasp of those who have known Berat since they were born, or was it an explosion of love for a medieval painter out of a sudden? It was none of these! There revenues have multiplied because visitors of Berat have multiplied. Until recently, if someone wanted to go to Berat, they had to ask for help to the army, as if they were asking permission to the NATO to go to a battlefield, because the road to Berat was a warpath. Then, once in Berat, instead of having an overview of old Berat, visitors had to mind the pits in the street. This is how the touristic Berat was like.
I can go on with all the cities, like Durres, etc. that are benefiting from this program in two aspects. Communities are having both social and psychological benefits, because people are creating a new relationship with their surroundings, and are not part of a large dormitory, but are part of a city.
The square, which I believe we will see soon finalized, the “Skanderbeg Square”, will give us back two things. It will give us back our identity, and it will give us back also Skanderbeg, that as important as the former. It will deliver the city from this nightmare right in its centre, and it will free also Skanderbeg. And Skanderbeg will become a normal part of it, and will finally rest in peace.
I am sure that our national has been rolling over where he is laying, due to what has happened in this square.
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The city hall of Tirana presented today at the presence of Prime Minister Edi Rama, the project for the “Skanderbeg Square” which will terminate in June 2017.
Tirana will have a main square for pedestrian only and which, due to the plants that will be planted there and the stones that will pave it, will symbolize all the Albanian regions, both in the country and abroad.
The project will be implemented in 12 months and will have such an extension that it will include some parts of the Small Ring. The area has been planned to be divided in 11 different small garden. Works for each of these gardens will be carried out independently, so that citizens can have to each of them as soon as they are completed, without having to wait 12 months until the end of the whole project.
The main elements of this project are the green spaces, natural stones, water for fountains and irrigation of the green spaces, and lighting of the buildings surrounding the square, and the square itself. The natural stones will be taken from the territories across Albania, starting from Tropoje and Kukes, Bilisht, Librazhd, the quarries of Tirana, Korca, Gjirokastra, Saranda Berat, Vlore, Kruje, Bulqizës, Prizren, Erseke, Skrapar, etc. They will have the shape of 10-12 cm thick stone slabs, and will pave approximately 41 thousand m2 of squares and sidewalks.
In terms of greenery, the project will bring to the centre of Tirana some varieties of trees and plants from all over Albania. Green areas will be planted with 900 tall decorative trees, 520 fruit trees, 954 tall decorative bushes, 4400 short shrubs and 35 thousand flower roots. Another novelty that this project brings to our country is the ecological perspective, because the rainwater will be used for irrigation and fountains. The project envisages over 2100 m3 reservoirs to collect rainwater. In addition, the lighting of the surrounding public buildings and of the square itself will be provided through a system of solar panels and dim lights.
Given the size of the project, and also the schedule of works and its planning, approximately 950 employees and various specialists are envisaged to be engaged. While in the coming months, the city hall of Tirana will consult with interest groups and citizens of Tirana on how to implement this project, and how will ensure a coherent communication to citizens.
