CIFTELIA BUILDING TIRANA
CIFTELIA BUILDING TIRANA
2025
Tirana
Albania
From the ground of Albania rises Ciftelia—a building that sings.
Named after the traditional Albanian string instrument, Ciftelia is more than a place to live. It is a composition of light, form, and feeling—a structure that breathes with its city, resonates with its people, and grows from the land on which it stands. In its rising vertical rhythm and its play of shadow and sun, it becomes an instrument in its own right, strumming the notes of tradition, future, and belonging.
Designed by Swiss architecture studio DMA, with deep roots in the Albanian context, Ciftelia is a response to a place we have come to love. Working in Albania is an open and ongoing exchange—rich in dialogue, optimism, and care. Here, we have found not only freedom from preconception, but also a collaborative spirit that allows architecture to flourish with clarity and intent.
The building emerges from Tirana’s layered urban landscape—a dense patchwork of inherited forms and spontaneous growth. Ciftelia introduces harmony within this organic anarchy, offering orientation and quiet strength. It respects the irregularity of its setting, yet gives it rhythm, coherence, and a sense of gentle order.
Its structure is rooted in a rational grid—a clear spine of orthogonal slabs—yet its spirit is anything but rigid. A series of prefabricated external elements adapt to both climate and context, creating a microclimate that protects and comforts: welcoming the low winter sun, shielding against the harsh summer light. The architecture listens to the seasons and responds, like any good host.
This is architecture as necessity—not in the sense of austerity, but of deep human need: for comfort, for beauty, for connection. We believe that when architecture is made with love, it communicates love. And that sincerity—not spectacle—is what endures.
Ciftelia draws on a long, Mediterranean memory. It remembers the order of classicism, the dynamism of the Baroque, the clarity of the Renaissance, the mystery of Gothic geometry, the grace of Ottoman heritage. It carries these echoes forward, not as references, but as energy. Its language is familiar, yet unmistakably of today—a new expression grown from old soil.
We love to think that Ciftelia has grown from where it stands. It is an Albanian building through and through: not only in its materials, but in its openness, its confidence, its joy. Like the instrument that gives it its name, it speaks of a culture that is vibrant, resilient, and ready to sing its future.
As Bruno Munari said: “civilized people live in the midst of their art.” And Bill Viola reminds us: “art, if not public, is not serious.” Ciftelia is our belief that architecture—when made honestly and lived fully—is the most public art of all.
