Skanderbeg Square

About Skanderbeg Square

By the ULTIMATE Tirana Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Skanderbeg Square is the centre of everything: a huge pedestrian space of about 40,000 square metres, paved with stone from across Albania and reopened after a major renovation in 2017. The statue of Skanderbeg by Odhise Paskali, unveiled in 1968, stands in the middle; the Et’hem Bey Mosque and the Clock Tower are on one side, and the Palace of Culture, the National Historical Museum and the 1930s Italian ministries around it. Come at dusk, when it fills with families.

A square drawn by Italians

Skanderbeg Square began on paper. The Italian architect Armando Brasini drew the first plan for a modern Tirana in 1925, Florestano Di Fausto continued it in a neo-Renaissance style, and Gherardo Bosio updated it in 1939 after Italy invaded Albania. Their ministries, with giant pilasters and arcades, still line the south side.

The communist years added the Palace of Culture, begun in 1959 on the site of the Old Bazaar, the National Historical Museum of 1981 with its great mosaic, and the fifteen-storey Hotel Tirana of 1979, now the Tirana International.

Every Albanian city has its main square, but this one is the country’s front room: forty thousand square metres where the nation gathers.

The hero on horseback

In the middle rides Skanderbeg, the 15th-century lord who held off the Ottomans for a quarter of a century. Odhise Paskali’s eleven-metre bronze was unveiled in 1968, on the 500th anniversary of his death; a statue of Stalin had stood on the square before it.

A square for people

For decades traffic swirled around the statue. In June 2017 the square reopened after a major renovation as a vast pedestrian space, paved with stone from every corner of Albania and slightly raised in the centre, with fountains and planting around the edges. It is now the setting for concerts, celebrations and, every December, the Christmas market.

The Et’hem Bey Mosque and the Clock Tower, the oldest buildings on the square, sit on the east side, a reminder of the small Ottoman town that stood here before the planners arrived.

Our advice: come at dusk, when the stone glows and families arrive for the evening walk, then climb the Clock Tower or take a coffee under the arches of the Palace of Culture to watch the square fill.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Skanderbeg Square before you go.