Some of the world’s best architects flocked to Tirana, Albania, last week for the second edition of Bread & Heart, a festival centered around architecture, landscape, ecology, and territorial development. “Landscapes of Abundance” was the festival’s theme.
That same week, thousands of protesters gathered in Tirana to rally against the construction of luxury resorts on the southwest Albanian coast, citing concerns related to environmental degradation and a perceived lack of transparency.
On June 9, Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama emphatically told The Associated Press he will not halt the construction of luxury resorts on Sazan Island, a former military base; and in the Nartë Lagoon area, a wildlife reserve home to over 70 endangered species.
AN emailed the Albanian prime minister’s office for comment. Here is a breakdown of the architectural projects spurring mass protests in the streets of Tirana.
Sazan Island
Albania is expected to join the European Union (EU) by 2030, so property values around the country are rising. EU accession is in part fueling the construction spree in Tirana, and along Albania’s southern coast, on Sazan Island.
Sazan Island is part of the Adriatic Riviera and about ten miles west of Vlorë, Albania’s third most populous city. The island off of Vlorë was decommissioned as a top-secret military base and chemicals plant in the 1990s, and in 2024 it was declassified for civilian use. An RFP for Sazan’s redevelopment was published in 2025.
Today Sazan Island has a monastery from the Middle Ages, thousands of concrete “pillbox” bunkers built by former Albania prime minster Enver Hoxha for defense purposes, and a network of underground tunnels. (Hoxha was famously paranoid.)
The plan for Sazan entails building 520 new villas, 600 townhouses, and 1,400 apartments, a casino, an 18-hole golf course, a water park, and a new marina suited for superyachts. Branded hotels expected to sprout up on Sazan Island are Aman Resorts, Cheval Blanc, Cipriani, and Atlantis, per reporting by journalist Eric Czuleger.
The developers backing the Sazan redevelopment project are Sazan Real Estate Development, an LLC registered in Doha, Qatar, and chaired by Asher Abehsera; Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner’s Miami-based investment firm; and Assets Group, a real estate corporation based in Qatar founded by two Qatari-Syrian billionaire brothers, Moutaz Al-Khayyat and Ramez Al-Khayyat.
Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA), an international office headquartered in Berlin, collaborated with Systematica, a transportation consultancy, on the RFP for Sazan published in November 2025 that, today, is circulating among members of the Albanian public.
A spokesperson for LAVA clarified the office’s involvement on the project for AN. “The document in circulation was actually a draft study developed by our office as one of multiple studies done for the Sazan Peninsula. As indicated in the document itself, this was a draft submission—not a final or approved plan,” the LAVA spokesperson said.
“As with all of our work, the study prioritised ecological responsibility, biodiversity, and the balance between land preservation and development,” the LAVA spokesperson continued. “Our involvement in the project did not continue beyond this stage, and we do not have any information about the current planning.”
Per a lively interview Rama gave to CNN, taped during the Bread & Heart Festival earlier this month, Rama said in regard to the Sazan Island redevelopment there is not yet a “project,” as there is no proposed design.
AN emailed Systematica for comment.
Nartë Lagoon
The Vjosë-Nartë Protected Landscape, more informally called the Nartë Lagoon area, is a wildlife reserve immediately north of Vlorë. The Nartë Lagoon is renowned for its flamingos, so the recent wave of protests against the luxury resort destination slated for construction there has been called the “Flamingo Revolution.”
In 2004, the Albanian government recognized Vjosë-Nartë as a “nature protection area,” thereby prohibiting development. In 2022, Vjosë-Nartë was redesignated from a “nature protection area” to a “protected landscape,” changing its legal status. A law enacted in 2024 allows for construction on wildlife reserves like Narta.
Five international architecture firms—Bjarke Ingels Group; Kengo Kuma & Associates; Ateliers Jean Nouvel; K-Studio, a Greek office; and Emre Arolat Architecture, a Turkish office—were commissioned to develop a framework plan for the Pishë Poro-Nartë region, a 52,000-acre area within the Vjosë-Nartë Protected Landscape.
Bjarke Ingels, Kengo Kuma, and Emre Arolat spoke in Tirana this month at Bread & Heart. A spokesperson for BIG more recently told AN that BIG is no longer active on the project in the Pishë Poro-Nartë region.
“BIG was one of five international architecture practices that contributed to an early assessment and initial master planning framework for the Pishë Poro-Nartë region of Albania. Its scope did not include Sazan Island,” the spokesperson for BIG said.
“Following the completion of our contribution to that framework, BIG is not currently engaged in any projects in the Pishë Poro-Nartë region,” the BIG spokesperson continued. “Should any future work be considered in the area, it would be approached—as all our other projects—through the appropriate planning and consultation processes, with careful due diligence and a thorough understanding of potential environmental and social impacts.”
Kengo Kuma, Jean Nouvel, K-Studio, and Emre Arolat did not immediately reply to AN’s request for comment.
The Protests
On March 15, 2024, Jared Kushner posted renderings on social media of his proposed projects in Serbia and Albania. Some renderings were of the hotel project Kushner had plans to build in Belgrade (halted last December). Other renderings showed new villas and a marina on Sazan. Kushner didn’t list any architects attached to the renderings.
The New York Times broke a news story in January 2025 that revealed the Albanian government had approved Kushner’s development plans for Sazan. Tensions over the development simmered, as many Albanians felt caught off guard. Protests in Albania against the project started happening intermittently.
Animus toward the Sazan project ramped up after May 31, 2026, when a protester in Zvërnec, Albania, was detained by security guards, beaten, and dragged away. A video of the unconscious protester went viral. As a result, more Albanians began protesting.
“It really snowballed after that,” said Elian Stefa, a curator and scholar based in Tirana who has researched Sazan Island for the past seven years. “The visual arrogance of the whole situation is what sparked it.”
“The protests are increasing in numbers daily. Every day there are large protests in the capital,” Stefa noted. “The protests are driven by the youth of Albania. They are protesting the way this country is being developed. The population does not feel involved in the developments that are happening.”
The Ornithological Society of Albania, Eco-Albania, and other environmentalist groups are now aiming to limit development on Sazan and in the Nartë Lagoon. “The natural beauty of these places is incredible,” Stefa affirmed.
For Stefa, and other Albanians, the issue at hand has to do with transparency. “The main problem is that we are kept in the dark,” he said. “Most people found out about the development from a New York Times article. It wasn’t even our own media that reported it. We feel left out of all these processes.”
Moving forward, Stefa and members of the public are calling for the Albanian government to rescind the law passed in 2024 that allows for development in nature preserve areas. Stefa would also like to see more local architects benefit from Tirana’s construction spurt.
“Albania is seen as this heaven for architects to come and experiment, a playground, like how Rotterdam used to be,” Stefa said. “But is all of this experimentation in line with the desires of the people? Many feel as though that the identity of the capital is changing without their permission.”
As Albania inches closer to joining the European Union, Stefa recognizes it’s important for Tirana to modernize, however there is room for improvement. “We look forward to reaching the EU with a modern and established face,” he said, “but at the same time, this shouldn’t happen against the wishes of the people.”
Landscapes of Abundance
The “Flamingo Revolution” coincided with Tirana’s second Bread & Heart Festival which, from June 3 to June 5, brought international architects to the city for panels, debates, and presentations. (It also happened concurrently with the announcement of a major renovation project in Tirana by Herzog & de Meuron, slated for Albania’s Palace of the Congresses.)
Bread & Heart was organized by Albania’s Territorial Development Agency and National Territorial Planning Agency alongside the NEWROPE Chair of Architecture and Urban Transformation at ETH Zürich.
The list of speakers invited to the Bread & Heart Festival is impressive. Beyond Rama, Ingels, Kuma, and Arolat, other prominent architects that spoke were Stefano Boeri, Jeanne Gang, Kersten Geers and David Van Severen, Reinier de Graaf, Pierre de Meuron, Charles Renfro, Francis Kéré, Ma Yansong, Winka Dubbeldam, Amale Andraos, and Dan Wood, among many others.
Stefa told AN, “With the festival, you have all of these architects and, in the streets, you have the youth of the country saying that the future is for us to decide, not the architects.”
Today, the European Commission is applying pressure on the Rama administration to halt construction in Sazan.