Tirana

Tirana is the largest city in Albania, a country whose cosmopolitan beauty was, until relatively recently, usurped by drab, gray communist-era buildings. The nation’s palette changed drastically when a painter stepped into Tirana’s mayoral seat and transformed the city by tearing down buildings and painting the remaining structures using vibrant, unusual colors.

Before entering politics, Edi Rama had been a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of Albania (this Renaissance man had also played on the national basketball team and authored four books—two narrative and two visual). He had an eye for how to illuminate. And having been a leader of the students’ movement at the Academy of Fine Arts and an outspoken member of the push for democracy, Rama was well positioned to revive Tirana.

He became the minister of culture, youth, and sports in 1998, giving him an opportunity to gain support for his creative use of art in the capital. Two years later he ran for mayor, won in a landslide, and launched his mission to clear out the bleak, concrete Old and establish a vibrant, multicolored New. He introduced inventive new shading schemes to public spaces that had been dominated by dreary facades, increased the number of green areas, and overhauled Tirana’s road network. In 2013, he was elected prime minister, maintaining a freshly animated country, one imbued with the kind of hope that inspires residents to place flowers on their windowsills.

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