Boomtown Tirana is undergoing a radical redesign, with new towers rapidly being added to the skyline. Looking around Skanderbeg Square, it’s hard to imagine that the modest, 56-metre-high Tirana International Hotel (56m, 1979) was the tallest building in Albania for 21 years after its completion… its nickname Pesëmbëdhjetëkatëshi, ‘fifteen storey building’ is almost longer than it is high. The rapid and literal rise of Tirana since the mid-2000s is demonstrated by the massive yellow sister Intercontinental Hotel (133m, 2025) dwarfing the old hotel. Dozens of other towers, recently completed, under construction or under discussion, are set to change the look of the city, designed by famous international architect companies who have often taken a playful approach. Many of these towers are controversial, due to dubious financing methods, architecture that is considered frivolous, or for altering the look and feel of the historical centre. Here are some of Tirana’s most remarkable highrises. 

Tirana’s Rock (89m, 2025) is featured on the cover of this issue of Tirana In Your Pocket, and overlooks Tirana’s main square. Its balconies form the head of national hero Skanderbeg, and are equipped to allow plants to grow along the facade. The Book Building complex (77m, 2025) with its curious arched balconies rises in a corner of the main square, unfortunately somewhat overshadowing Tirana’s prettiest building, the Et’hem Bey mosque. Next door, the concrete-panelled Maritim Hotel Plaza (85m, 2007) is already one of the older highrises. It changes from an ellipse at ground level to a square at the top, and manages to elegantly include the Ottoman-era Kaplan Pasha tomb in one corner of the building. Across the square, the cantilevered Eyes of Tirana tower (135m, 2025) consists of playfully stacked and slightly wonky cubes. The Alban Tower (107m, 2023) has a tree-shaped design consisting of four green and blue towers, overlooking the Orthodox Cathedral. 

Along the river stands the monolithic bulk of Downtown One (150m, 2025), with pixel-like protruding bay windows that form the map of Albania. Nearby stand the ABA Business Center (83m, 2009) with colourful slats and a regrettable top-floor video screen, and the striking Marriott Hotel tower (112m, 2019) in the Albanian national colours red and black, and attached to the national stadium. Behind the stadium, the quirky Vertical Forest building (75m, 2024) is inspired by Milan’s Bosco Verticale and is planted with 145 trees and 3,000 shrubs. 

Come back in a few years, and you’ll also be able to enjoy the sight of the Puzzle building near the lake, a tall jigsaw consisting of house shapes, the 13 stacked cubes of the Vertical Hora (142m), the two buckling, hugging Bond Tower skyscrapers (200m) and the massive Grand Park Skyline Tower (266m) and Mount Tirana (206m) projects. Nothing, however, is as megalomaniac as the proposed Society Towers, a three-pronged skyscraper which will top out at 300 metres. Tirana will never be the same again. 

Text and images, Jeroen van Marle