Coop Himmelb(l)au wins Albanian Parliament building competition

The 28000 m2 project, known as "Open Parliament of Albania", will be its first building in the country and will be situated along the compositional axis of the city.

According to the architect, the design "incorporates fundamental democratic values such as openness, transparency and public co-determination."

At the building's core the parliamentary hall is situated inside a glazed cone that rises above the office building, which is wrapped in a curtain-like exterior skin made from panels of perforated steel.

A stairway at the base of the main building leads the public to the landscaped roof of the building, which serves as an elevated plaza with views down into the parliamentary hall.

The main entrance is through a solid conical structure, which is designed to act as a "counterpart" to the transparent parliamentary hall.

Project information:

Client: The Republic of Albania, The Parliament
Site area: 28000 m2
Gross floor area: 38650 m2
Footprint: 13100 m2
Height: 36 m, 50 m (highest point)
Length: 88 m, 70 m (office building)
Width: 60 m, 70 m (office buiding)

Design principal: Wolf D. Prix
Design partner: Karolin Schmidbaur
Senior project partner: Michael Volk
Project partner: Hartmut Hank
Project architect: Friedrich Hähle
Design architects: Ivana Jug, Steven Ma
Project team: Anne Arildsen, Peregrine Buckler, Veronika Janovska, Kadri Kerge, Heimo Matt, Anais Méon, Valerie Messini, Ismet Gorrolli, Jeroen Roosen, Tamara Soto Bailon, Xinyu Wan
3D visualization: Steven Ma, Cynthia Sanchez-Morales
Graphic: Thomas Hindelang, Jan Rancke, Anja Sorger
Photography: Markus Pillhofer
Model building: Sebastian Buchta, Tyler Bornstein, Paul Hoszowski, La Chi Nam, Morteza Farhadian Dehkordi, Tichen Lu, Magnus Möschel
Animation: Isochrom

Structural engineering: B+G Ingenieure, Bollinger Grohmann Schneider ZT-GmbH, Vienna, Austria
Energy design: Prof. Brian Cody, Berlin, Germany