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Tirana Times, June 30, 2026 – When Tirana Times published Reinier de Graaf’s open letter from The Albanian Files, it did so because the text had already become one of the most discussed and controversial passages of the book. The letter, written in March 2025, appeared to call, in deliberately provocative language, for Albania’s elections to be cancelled and for Prime Minister Edi Rama to remain in power indefinitely, even “maybe even King.” In the Albanian political context, especially at a moment of mass civic protests, concerns over opaque development projects, and growing criticism of personalized power, the text could not remain merely an architectural anecdote. It became part of a much larger debate about the relationship between international architecture, political patronage and democracy in Albania.
Tirana Times has also argued that The Albanian Files is important not only as a book about buildings, towers, resorts or public spaces, but as a document that reveals a system. Its pages show how Albania’s transformation has often been narrated through the language of global design, while deeper questions remain about public accountability, decision-making, land, capital, institutions and the extraordinary concentration of political authorship around one man. In this reading, architecture is not neutral. It can become a prestigious façade for opaque money, captured institutions and personalized rule.
De Graaf’s response, published below in full, seeks to clarify that his original letter was satire. He writes that it was not a constitutional proposal, nor a plea for monarchy, hereditary rule, cancelled elections or the abolition of democracy. According to him, the object of the satire was architecture’s dependency on power and the morally compromised position of the foreign architect who benefits from that power.
That clarification is important, and readers should have the opportunity to read it in full. But it does not close the debate. On the contrary, it sharpens it. If the letter was satire, then the question becomes why the satire resonated so strongly in Albania. The answer lies in the political reality surrounding The Albanian Files: a country where international architectural prestige has been repeatedly linked to direct access to the prime minister, controversial development projects, weak institutional checks and the marginalization of local voices.
In that sense, Reinier de Graaf now explains Reinier de Graaf. But the broader issue remains Albania itself: who designs its future, who decides over its territory, who profits from its transformation, and whether architecture serves the public interest or power. The debate over The Albanian Files is therefore not simply about irony, misunderstanding or literary interpretation. It is about the place of architecture in a democracy, and about the responsibility of world-famous architects when their work becomes part of a political system larger than design.
A letter about a letter
To all who have read, quoted, shared, denounced, defended, misunderstood, or chosen to misunderstand my open letter to Edi Rama,
When I wrote the letter, in March last year, for a book about recent architecture projects in Albania, I believed I was writing satire. Having to make this statement already signals a problem. Satire that must identify itself as such has, to some extent, failed. Irony ceases to be ironic the very moment it needs to be explained. A joke dissected is no longer funny.
Still, circumstances occasionally require the impossible and therefore I am writing this letter about the letter: an explanation of something whose effect depended on not being explained.
The original letter was not a constitutional proposal. It was not a plea for monarchy, hereditary rule, cancelled elections, or the abolition of democracy in Albania or anywhere else. It was an attempt to describe, through exaggeration, the often uncomfortable dependency of architecture on power — a recurring theme in my books — and push that dependency to its absurd conclusion.
The object of the satire was not the Albanian people, nor Albania’s democracy, nor Edi Rama personally. The object was architecture’s all too frequent weakness to power when power suits its aims. The letter was written from the deliberately compromised position of the foreign architect: grateful, impressed, dependent, and therefore morally suspect. Its “author” is the professional beneficiary wondering whether democracy might be inconvenient.
Last year, I thought the irony would be obvious. Today, I am less certain. The climate in which any such letter is read has changed. And not just in Albania. We live in a time in which irony proves increasingly difficult. Current political mores demand literalness, loyalty and immediate classification. Ambiguity is treated as evasion, exaggeration as evidence, satire as confession.
This is dangerous. Satire is a basic condition of political freedom. Without satire, a democracy loses one of its most essential instruments of self-correction: the ability to laugh at its own contradictions before they harden into dogma.
At the risk of igniting things further, there is a certain irony in the present situation. A letter that jokingly called for the abolition of democratic procedure is now being used, by some, in a way that abolishes the freedom of literary interpretation. The refusal to read irony itself becomes an anti-democratic act.
I do not ask anyone to like the letter, nor do I ask anyone to find it funny. But I do ask that it be read for what it is: a note of caution amidst professional exuberance — an appeal to an educated, liberal, internationally minded profession to remain critical towards — and independent of — the powers that be, even if those powers inevitably seal their fate.
If the letter has caused confusion, I regret the confusion. If it has caused discomfort, I am less sure I regret that. Discomfort was part of its purpose.
Yours sincerely,
Reinier de Graaf
