Five studios short-listed for Tirana mosque design project
Tirana Times
TIRANA, March 7 – Five international architectural studios have been short-listed to participate in the Tirana-municipality competition to design a cultural complex made up of a new mosque and a joint Museum of Tirana history and religious harmony in the capital’s city centre. The five short-listed studios include Spain’s Andreas Perea Ortega, French Architecture Studio, Denmark’s Big, the Netherlands’ seARCH and UK’s Zaha Hadid Architects. The decision was taken by a jury headed by Tirana Mayor Edi Rama and composed of international architects and representatives of the Albanian Muslim Community.
Tirana mayor Edi Rama described the upcoming project a challenge which was welcomed not only by the Muslim Community but also the public in the capital.
Some 100 architectural studios and independent architects responded to the municipality’s call to participate in the competition’s first stage until February 21.
The 5 short-listed studios must submit their design project until April 2, says the municipality.
The museum perceived to be built in the city centre will feature Tirana’s history, religious coexistence and religious persecution during the communist regime which banned religion for more than 20 years until 1990, making Albania the world’s first officially atheist country.
The Tirana museum, thought to be built next to the new mosque project in the city center, will be a 1,650 m2 building on a 13,200 m2 area. Tirana Mayor Edi Rama says the construction of the mosque would complete the triangle of religious institutions co-existing in Tirana along with the Orthodox Cathedral and the Catholic Church.
Next to the New Mosque, the Museum of Tirana and Religious Harmony will house the documented history of Tirana as well as the way it has voyaged, as an indivisible part and even essential in Tirana civic coexistence; coexistence among religions.
The design of the New Mosque and joint Museum of Tirana and its religious harmony will be based on the prepared and approved Master Plan of the Center of Tirana
