Tirana: the back story

About Tirana: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Tirana Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Tirana is young for a European capital. For centuries it was a modest town in a fertile plain below Mount Dajti; then, in a hundred years, it became the capital of Albania, gained Italian boulevards, grew rapidly and reinvented itself after 1991. Few cities have changed so much, so quickly.

An Ottoman founding

By tradition, the town was founded in 1614 by Sulejman Pasha Bargjini, who built a mosque, a bakery and a hammam at a crossroads of caravan routes. The town grew around its bazaar, and in the late 18th and early 19th centuries the Et’hem Bey Mosque and the Clock Tower were built at its heart.

Capital of Albania

Albania declared its independence in 1912. In 1920 the Congress of Lushnjë chose Tirana, central and well connected, as the capital, and the small town began to grow into a city.

Tirana became Albania’s capital in 1920.

Italian boulevards

In the 1920s and 1930s, Italian architects laid out the monumental centre: the ministries around Skanderbeg Square, with their ochre walls, and the long north–south boulevard. Their buildings still define the city centre.

The 20th century

After the Second World War, Albania was ruled for more than four decades by a communist regime that isolated the country from the world. Tirana’s museums now tell that story factually and powerfully: Bunk’Art 1 and 2, the House of Leaves and the Postbllok memorial.

A city reinvented

Since 1991 Tirana has grown fast and changed its face: painted façades in the 2000s, the redesigned Skanderbeg Square in 2017, the Pyramid reborn as a centre for young people, and a skyline of new towers. Through it all, the cafés stayed full.

Our advice: start at Skanderbeg Square and the Et’hem Bey Mosque, walk the boulevard to the Pyramid and Blloku, give a morning to Bunk’Art and the House of Leaves, and end the day on Mount Dajti, looking back over a city that has rebuilt itself again and again.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Tirana: the back story before you go.