March 2004. A flock of urbanites, carrying their luggage across the one kilometre stretch of no-man’s land in the direction of a MAKEDONIJA/SHQIPERIA sign sieved by bullet holes, approach the entry to Albania for the first time. At the turn of the hill, an abandoned little mushroom-shaped bunker lurks in the shrubs; the black, two-headed eagle in a red field flaps above the view of the lake shared by the two countries. Apart from scattered concentrations of built structures around the consolidated centres and isolated houses standing boldly alone, the landscape is relatively unspoilt – and extremely intense. At dusk, wind starts breezing and waters rise, the sky swells with grey clouds framed by the surrounding hills and the mountains are softened by the setting sun. Only a few minutes at the border check-in – without anything special happening – already introduce a different state of mind; a society of the hand, where a bargain and tangible personal deal still count.

The road to Tirana is something epic – not, however, for its poor physical conditions, which are recovering astonishingly fast and where progress is noticeable even over the few months between two visits (a real-time lay-out trace of the on-going, fermenting improvement of the country’s conditions). It is epic for the life-scenes it crosses. People mow with sickles – not a forgotten cabalistic symbol – others hoe under a fiery sun sheltered only by broad-brimmed hats, the noise of a farm tractor can be heard in the background. Along the way, fruit is transported in second-hand IVECO vans and sold using the weighbridge. While mighty trucks drive smoothly from freshly asphalted surfaces to then dodge the scattered, break-any-engine holes of powdery tracks, mules and donkeys remain a very popular means of transport. They carry anyone, of any age, following the slow, natural rhythm or jog trot under the burden of an amazing volume of hay ten-times their size. Goats, sheep and cows are still standard on the family estate. The same cows that children or women lead to pasture might stand out as a black, lean silhouette among the young reeds along the lake shore or riverside. At a certain point the road enters Elbasan, a post-industrial city that could come directly out of Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Just passing through, it emanates an inseparable double sensation: on one hand that of a city as the fading ghost of itself, on the other a place where, nevertheless, somewhere something new is preparing to leap out of warm ashes.

Then, just as the Via Ignatia descends from the mountains, the colourful Tirana arrives: unfolding from the range of mountains and opening into a natural amphitheatre that embraces the city, facing all the way down to Durres and the Sea. Tirana is the apex condition where all physically contrasting phenomena are situated side-by-side to even more contrasting social changes. Here, everything happening in Albania is accelerated; time and welfare evolution gaps simply happen in the most spontaneous, forward-looking way. This atmosphere springs both new fashionable high-tech skyscrapers and former shanty buildings freshly repainted with crazy-fancy-happy colours to spur people’s mood. Brides are delighted to be pictured in the newly rehabilitated Park Rinia. People revive the good part of communist habits, flooding the centre of the city during summer evenings. Swarms stroll down the monumental axis, proud and surprised to be able to do freely what was once the only option but has now become the best chance to have a suggestive Mediterranean look-at-me then I’ll-look-at-you display, dizzying eyes and mind just by the fullness of the scenery – a complete freestyle clothing and technology welfare affirmation. New media like cell phones not only allow a more emphatic boasting of a symbolic status as in the rest of the westernized world, but also somehow individually overcome the country’s infrastructural deficiencies. This contrast is intensified by an unparalleled context that is limping, trying to catch up as fast as possible. For instance, the City of Tirana shuts down the energy every day right at mid-day for several hours to sell it to neighbouring countries. This discrepancy demonstrates how some of the country’s most basic needs still come prior to others for the nation to grow stronger. Despite this, it doesn’t seem to dim the euphoria and enthusiasm of the place. On the contrary, the entire situation – directly and indirectly – is pushing private and public realms to reciprocally incite development.

Every aim is set in the most proximate future, if not directly in the present. In effect, the whole city lives in a constant present-coinciding-into-future: every circumstance is steered by an attitude of instant solutions to immediate problems. Thinking often doesn’t precede doing; it is contemporary to it, if not an empirical latter reflection. It is easy to read how the country is trying vigorously to overcome this attitude as much as possible. A visible striving to constructively turn latent potentials into profitable start-ups is taking shape all over the place. The underlying challenge is to preserve the superlative unaffected nature of this ancestral culture as the quality that makes Albania so different from all other overly sophisticated European countries. However, everything appears to be rushing towards a development future in which they know only some part of the outcome, or, more likely, most know only the part of the outcome they desire to know. Consequently, there are sometimes difficulties in the procedure of how to reach the aim due to lack of experience or incomplete knowledge – as in the uncontrolled littering and sewage disposal – or due to a certain blind greed – as in the primary individual concern (everybody builds his own single detached house, needs his brand new (second-hand) Mercedes…) – which apparently is not only a post-communist reaction, but may also be symptomatic of a cultural heritage that highlights the individual. In the meantime a part of Albania is maturing, gaining consciousness of the hidden dangers such behaviour can produce and is now in the process of proactively intervening, tracing new paths to tame all these energies into a common benefit. Some of the most successful current endeavours are reflective of this, including such public cultural events as the Tirana Biennale or public initiatives such as the clearing of the Lana River or the enlightened synergy of culture, nature and archaeological understanding that permeates Butrint in the far south of Albania. All these situations are attempts made with conviction, a wishful and impressive – psychologically powerful – collection of direct demonstrations of what the citizens want their country and society to be – but still is not yet. The stunning aspect that drives this break-through toward Europe is a seemingly ubiquitous personal belief among the population that positively everything IS GOING TO HAPPEN.

Tirana, an entire city to be reorganized in response to its current reality: a pre-existing formal core flooded with an over-accumulation of informal constructions and a population eager to improve. Now, they’re quickly realizing how a structured society needs its appropriate spaces. Tirana goes public.