“Bread & Heart” Festival puts Albania on another prestigious map of Europe

2025-06-06 11:41:00, Aktualitet CNA

“Bread & Heart” Festival is a new European event, which brings together in Tirana in its first edition over 150 well-known international architects from Europe, Asia, North and South America, who work in Albania, together with their local partners and their guests, who come from different walks of life, to share experiences, discuss the challenges of urban and social development today.

This festival puts Albania on another prestigious map of Europe, creating the premises for the future "Bread & Heart" Festival to become a prestigious global event, with architecture at the center, but with an increasingly wider range of disciplines included in the debate.

This festival is organized by the Territorial Development Agency, under the direction of Adelajda Roka, Director General of ARD, and under the auspices of Prime Minister Edi Rama.

A historic event held in Tirana that has brought together the most renowned architects from around the world with the aim of exchanging inspiring ideas.

The opening of the first edition of this Festival was also welcomed by Prime Minister Edi Rama.

EID-UL-QALAM DAY AND THE BREAD & HEART INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE FESTIVAL

“Bread & Heart” Festival puts Albania on another prestigious map

Prime Minister Edi Rama, in his introductory and welcoming speech, conveyed a very special message, indicating that this festival is taking place on a holy day like Eid al-Adha and this could not be a coincidence, but according to the Prime Minister, it is a blessing.

"It so happens that today is Eid al-Fitr, a holy day, a national holiday that is expected by all Albanians regardless of their faith, it is a day rooted in a history that belongs to Muslims, Christians, Jews and perhaps above all, the common spiritual memory of humanity, a history that travels through time, through beliefs and geography, arriving with an inalienable importance, an inalienable value at the heart of where we are today.

Ibrahim, Abraham has a vision in the Islamic tradition, this vision continues to repeat itself for several nights and there in this belief when a dream is repeated in a row to be a help, it is transformed into an instruction, into a message, into an order. In a divine order "Sacrifice your son Ismail, the father does not hide it, he tells his son, and the young son, sober, shocked, says: Do as you are commanded, you will find me with the patient.

And so father and son walk towards the unspeakable, not in fear, but in peace, towards the moment that will test the essence of faith, not blind obedience, but radical faith, and just as at the moment when the blade is raised, a lamb appears, the sacrifice is directed elsewhere and the prophecy is fulfilled, not through death, but through surrender, because what was on the altar, that day, was not a child, it was ego, possessiveness, the illusion of control, and what remained was the most enduring offering of all, the connection between the dream and the faith to carry it forward.

This is the meaning we celebrate today, not ritual, but liberation, not the knife, but mercy, not the power to take, but the grace to give, not the offering of flesh, but of oneself. And in its own way, so radical and fundamental, it is the reason why we are gathered here.

Because we all know, Albania is not a country that attracts the world's most visionary architects with money or glitz, it attracts them with something much harder to define, but impossible to fake, the shared belief in the reality of a dream and the belief that it can be carried, not only here, but especially here. Something, full of life, unrepeatable, something still free, incredibly free, from the comfort of regulations that did not suffocate.

This festival in its own way is a feast of the soul, an act of stepping forward, not to dominate the earth, but to listen, not to impose, but to imagine together, not to sacrifice one vision for another, but to let go of our egos so that something common, something greater, may arise in their place.

And if this seems like a coincidence, this coming together has a new beginning and a day of sign, I have to say and believe me, I have come a long way in every sense and for better or worse, I do not believe in coincidence and I invite each of you to feel the connection between this day and this new adventure to receive this unlikeable convergence, not as a coincidence, as a chance, but as a blessing", said Rama.

“Bread & Heart” Festival puts Albania on another prestigious map

Further, in his speech, the Prime Minister said that Albania produces more architecture than all of Europe combined.

"Honored young and experienced architects, precious friends of Albania, who have come here year after year and month after month from both hemispheres of the world to join the powerful Albanian army of architects, Architecture can transform not only spaces, but also minds. Not only places, but also the imagination of a community, its sense of belonging to the country, its vision for the future and its self-confidence.

Dear friends invited to this army, architects, students, young people, I wish you a warm welcome here in the pulsating heart of Tirana, in an Albania that today produces more architecture than all of Europe combined, while climbing the final steps that still separate it from the European Olympus.

Today, here we embark together on a new adventure to create a spiritually shaped space, not a space where architecture must be built, but architects must be listened to. To be heard about what the next move might be to consider or abandon, the next step to take or avoid, the next challenge to embrace or let go.

Someone might ask. Do these dilemmas have to do with architecture, with policymaking, with life, or with something else entirely? The truth is that I don't see sharp dividing lines between them, and when I talk about architecture I find very little that is outside its reach. Maybe I'm wrong, or completely biased, caught up in the pull of architecture and the minds that produce it. However, I can tell you without hesitation that listening to real architects and tracing their creative process is an extraordinary form of extracurricular education in policymaking, understanding the forces of nature and human will that confront them, is taking a look at all those ways that are needed to make decisions and to follow the future tension of compromises that must follow from the grit of an idea that arises to the fragile terrain of reality, without destroying it, but making it stand so proudly, is a masterclass in resistance for anyone who is determined to give shape to their dream", declared the Prime Minister.

"Bread and heart", we also found a motto, "bring some salt, please"!

“Bread & Heart” Festival puts Albania on another prestigious map

The Prime Minister emphasized that we are here with a powerful army of architects, in a bid to conquer the future that has stopped for a moment to be born to give life to a festival that, in addition to its vision and motto, also has the mission to shape a destination, a meeting with the future here in Albania through "bread of the heart", yes it is for renowned architects, but not only for them, not only for their certainties, their achievements or trophies, but it also has to do with what disturbs, worries, angers, provokes, and inspires them.

"We are here to make a very strong bet on architecture as a catalyst in a society where relationships, both spiritual and territorial, must be negotiated, renegotiated, learning from the past, facing the future.

In fact, we have found a name for the space we have started to create, the "Bread and Heart" festival, we also found a motto, "bring some salt, please"!

The expression "bread, salt and heart" is the holy trinity of Albanian hospitality, which has preserved the traditional spirit of this land and our code of honor that requires us to welcome friends, travelers and strangers, sharing everything we have, but no less than "bread for the stomach, salt for taste, and what is more important, the heart for their safety."

So, here we are, with a powerful army of architects, in a rush to conquer the future that has stopped for a moment to be born to give life to a festival that, in addition to its vision and motto, also has the mission to shape a destination, an encounter with the future here in Albania through "bread of the heart", yes it is for renowned architects, but not only for them, not only for their certainties, their achievements or trophies, but it also has to do with what disturbs, worries, angers, provokes, and inspires them.

The idea is to share a space, as if it were a question, to reflect on the doubts we carry, the hopes we nurture and the dreams we think are worth pursuing. There is something that is disturbing, but also that raises this question. The common word now seems elusive, it seems as if individualism cures some ecological rooms and meanwhile what is common is slipping through our fingers. Not necessarily out of malice, but through destruction, through fatigue and forgetfulness, we have forgotten how to listen, how to disagree without creating division. How to build without dominating, how to share without doubting.

Sometimes those who save the common word do so to create deeper divisions, to divide maliciously to create boundaries, to create hierarchies of belonging.

This is precisely why we have been called here, to confront it. A world of multiplying crises, natural and man-made, where the very idea of ??us is surrounded, where dialogue is drowned in noise and politics is driven by fear, where success is measured by height and not proximity and personal ambition often forgets responsibility for the whole", the Prime Minister underlined.

“Bread & Heart” Festival puts Albania on another prestigious map

Rama emphasized that Albania has now become a gateway of hope, not as a slogan, but a lived experience for all international architects.

"Thus, this meeting is not just a celebration of architecture, but a kind of architecture in itself, a human construct, built on the fragile ruins of what we have inherited, on the dreams we still hope to realize, an invitation to remember and to create. To remember what it means to have something in common, whether in trauma or aspiration, and to create what is still missing and what is most urgent to remember to share."

Just as ancient builders built temples not only to house the gods, but to sustain communities and welcome distant friends, or like those who built not only homes but also hope on the ruins of wars, so too are we asked to build not stone monuments, but spaces of meaning, not concrete structures, but pillars of understanding, which is why it is so meaningful that one of our essential architects from Europe, the United States, China, South Korea and Albania has decided to come here to Albania, not as lone stars shedding light on a foreign land, but as participants in a shared experiment, which is being built, not only in one country, but together with the country.

Carrying the charm of their tradition with the ideas that come from shaping their cities, the different materials as well as the burdens of crises, crises at home, in their countries, crises in a world that is shrinking by the hour, crises that are made. But here in Albania something quite special happens, they are not only welcomed, but welcomed, not only welcomed, but integrated. They are integrated by a place and people whose landscape is as diverse as the past and where human patterns are difficult to trace.

Perhaps because of this unpredictability, because there is no simple routine, no predictability, the past is tragic and the future is courageous. The experience remains porous. Open enough to be shared and this meeting of what they bring they find something that is neither innate nor brought, but something in between a synthesis, a conversation, not just in concrete, light, but in flesh and blood, not a collage of styles, but a community of goals, narratives, visions and vulnerabilities.

What comes here is not just construction, but a shared authorship of the place, a shared authorship, where the separate extends into the common and where every "I", every "we" is transformed with a trace connected to another trace and another like traces that form a path.

And perhaps this is the most precious part, that by building here, architects not only leave a mark or contribution, but also move something forward. They help us see, not just one path, but many paths, sometimes straight, sometimes zigzag, building a geometry of belonging. There is a genuine energy in what architects can generate, an energy that flows, floods into us that transforms us and that shapes the country itself with an energy that comes from Albanian ambition and from the ambition for a common response for the good, not only of Albania, but of every participating country of our continent although not of our common world, an energy taken from the energy of our time, transformed into the collective will to respond, not only because of professional curiosity, but for the shadows, the understood human impulse.

This is where true beauty lies, in the moment when we meet beyond our roles, beyond our resumes.

In that rare space, where professional knowledge merges with human instinct, where design stands beyond doubt and skill walks with weakness, there, with this tension, something long-lasting and strong is built, not only with architecture, but through architecture for all of us.

I am truly moved, touched today because it is worth saying in front of such extraordinary minds, I hate to call them stars by the way, that Albania has become a gateway of hope, not as a slogan, but a lived experience for all international architects, who are coming in numbers that just a few years ago we would not have imagined, but also for developers, I would have to say, who are slowly learning that hope does not grow, by avoiding paper standards, but by growing to achieve them and to have value in what they build, not only their qualification, but also for this country. Not only for their pockets, but for the country of their children and not only for our country, but yes, and for the world.

Tirana today is no longer just a stage, it is a catalyst, it is no longer a location, but a collaborator. The projects that arise in Albania are not local mediocrity or global clichés, they are alive and isolating with value because they come from the fusion of what is deeply rooted, in a world obsessed with icons, with authorship, with ownership.

What unfolds quietly here seems almost supernatural, something that is created as a common, but like nothing else before, and this is what the festival seeks. And what is more important, it dares to build between what is truly common, not with memory or anything else, but as an act of creation, a beautiful sign of this spirit is seen in the guests of the architectural army. Most of them have not come with staff, but with friends from other areas of life, who perhaps do not know how to draw a line, but carry what is most valuable, the human experience of a unique gift and remind us that the future is not built alone and certainly not within the limits of our expertise.

Architecture may be the clearest example of this, and these guests are valuable precisely because they bring something, not technical, but emotional, intuitive, cultural. They bring history, contradictions, question marks, they bring the kind of compromise that professional spaces often forget, and in doing so, they complete the picture because this festival is not about architecture as a profession, it is about architecture as the closest human act, the closest to the divine, to create spaces where truth can grow and protect itself, where our ancient need to belong, to connect, to leave a mark becomes something we all share. "If what is truly common does not begin with instruments and with certainty, but with the courage to let others in and the courage to change, in this festival that begins today, it is exactly the right thing in exactly the right thing and exactly the right place and let's see where it takes us, where it will take us, but even if it takes us nowhere, let's make sure that while we are together the bread is abundant, the heart is open and the salt is not lacking when needed," the prime minister concluded./ CNA