51N4E, Stefano Graziani Falma Fshazi

“Tell me where you want to go first. I will tell you the whole story on the way. My generation is well versed in The Palace of Dreams,’ Ont said, a strange pride straightening his back, as though it had shed a few of its years. ‘As for today’s youth, that’s a different story.”

This dual-narrative, part photo-novel, part real-life journey, tells one story in multiple ways. In its first part, the book couples short stories by Falma Fshazi with photographs by Stefano Graziani. The story of a discovery; an encounter with a strange land, beyond East and West, and a city, Tirana. The second part casts a retrospective look at the construction of a tower designed by 51N4E, and on all the projects that followed in its wake, from 2004 onwards. It describes moments, processes and relationships that allowed the architects to come into contact with a culture and a context so different from their own. Overall, this book is a story of embracing otherness, and a contemplation on how things meet.

“51N4E, in the beginning they were only architects and later they became Belgian immigrants in Albania…” (Edi Rama)