Finalist architectural studios in the second phase of the International Design Competition for the New Children’s Home & State Inspectorates Complex are presenting their projects today to the international jury, which will select the winning proposal from among entries distinguished by strong architectural, urban, and above all social merit.

Prime Minister Edi Rama attended the opening of this competitive phase, highlighting the importance of this process as part of a new approach to the development of public spaces and the integration of contemporary architecture in the service of public interest.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama:

I will speak very briefly, first to thank all the architects who have gathered here for this latest competition, organized by the Albanian Investment Corporation, aimed at further creating the conditions to benefit from public private partnerships and deliver new spaces for public functions.

At the same time, I would also like to thank the architects who generously agreed to be part of this international jury, and I am confident that once again we will have an intense day of creative emotions and another reason to feel good at the end of the day, by managing to add yet another project to the line of projects which, as the Corporation’s Director also presented, are already at an advanced stage and some of which are even ready to receive development permits and begin construction.

Thanks to this process, after many years we will finally have a new stadium of European standards, another architectural work worthy of the new history we are writing together with this extraordinary team of architects, the new National Library, a long-needed environment and another outstanding work not only in our country’s history but in the history of contemporary architecture. We will also have a new office complex for the administration, serving a significant number of institutions, a new sports palace, an impressive project that received unanimous support from the international jury, as well as a series of other works of major public interest.

Today, through this project, we are opening the way to two new directions for the future: creating entirely new conditions for children who are entrusted to the solidarity of society, orphans, and at the same time for the new Inspectorates Corps. On this occasion, I would like to thank the Chief Inspector, who for ten consecutive years led an institution that truly emerged from nothing and was built from scratch, and which today is ready to take another leap forward.

I also want to congratulate all the local studios present here as partners of the international studios, because while projects are being developed, while new agreements are being formed, and while Albania has become a reference point in the world of contemporary architecture as a place with a strong concentration of prominent international architects, Albania is at the same time an open university. It offers opportunities to all young Albanian architects and to new studios in Albania, enabling them, through direct collaboration with these masters and these major, highly experienced studios, to gain knowledge and experience that no university or foreign studio practice can provide.

Thank you all very much once again. I hope no one feels discouraged and that everyone follows these presentations with interest until the end. At the same time, I say to all those who will not win, since there will be one winner, that here in Albania there are no losers in these competitions, because, as many of you know well, for many who have not won in the past, even losing becomes an introduction to the country and afterwards this country does not let go of those who come; on the contrary, it engages them and gives them opportunities to become involved in other projects.

Thank you all very much.