The Albanian government will rebuild the National Theater it demolished last weekend, in another site and repurposed for kids, not for adults.
Following public calls and petitions for the theater to be rebuilt at the same location and in the exact same design, Prime Minister Edi Rama said he had been pushed by some people to reflect, and had decided to rebuild the theater.
Speaking in parliament on Thursday, Rama explained that he will build the original theater project, which the architect had not been able to implement in its entirety. However, it will be rebuilt in another undisclosed location, and it will be repurposed.
“I have good news but I won’t tell it all. Given that the building was never constructed [according to the project], and given that there have been some people who have made me reflect over a missing part, a vacuum, hurt – not these ones [protesting artists], who don’t care about the building.
We will take the exact original project and will give it back, neither to the Alliance for the Politics of the Theater, nor to the artists and artist-politicians there, but we will give it back to kids, as part of a bigger project. Things will add up, and we will have among us a… not a theater and not there, but you’ll see the rest.
Then we will stand watching the pilgrimage to that building. Only kids will go there, maybe some nostalgic as well, and those who shriek now, but they won’t go to see it at the same location.
It’s worth it and we will do it. We have decided on it. Why are we deciding on it? Because we were elected so that we take decisions, not so that you or them could decide, the unelected ones. Democracy means inclusiveness, they say, and I agree.”
The Rama Government and Tirana Municipality illegally demolished Albania’s National Theater in the early morning hours on Sunday. The theater was included in Europa Nostra’s 7 Most Endangered European Sites. The Constitutional Court was examining two requests by President Ilir Meta to review legal acts related to its demolition.
Fusha shpk, government’s favorite contractor, invited the Municipality of Tirana today to join its project to build towers in the land near the demolished theater.
