How Towering Red Pillars Champion Albanian Identity

It’s custom in Albanian culture that guests be greeted with “bread, salt, and heart.” The bread and heart refer to food and welcome, but the salt symbolizes sharing treasures, harkening to centuries ago when salt and gold were considered equal in value. This tradition inspired Bread & Heart: Bring Some Salt, Please!, the name of an international festival that debuted in Tirana last June, bringing contributions from more than 150 local and global creatives. Among them was Miami-headquartered Oppenheim Architecture, which, with its satellite studio in the capital city, has been key in driving the country’s architectural evolution and has a model of its Besa Museum included in the Albanian pavilion at Italy’s current La Biennale di Venezia.

For Bread & Heart, the firm created the Pillars of Besa, an introduction to the more monumental version planned for the courtyard of the Besa, which will occupy the historic Qanie Toptani Libohova House that is being restored and musealized by Oppenheim, will honor Albanian culture including the citizens who saved Jewish people during the Holocaust, and open in 2027.

Pillars of Besa, ranging from 7½ to more than 30 feet tall, half the scale of their future iterations, are a manifestation of the concept of besa, Albanian for faith, but has come to represent tradition, protection, hospitality, and honor. Made from locally sourced chestnut and pine planks painted Albanian-flag red, each totem is inscribed with quotes from oral histories and written testimonies about the modern-day meaning of besa. “They offer space,” says architect Beat Huesler, project lead and director of the Oppenheim Architecture Europe studio in Switzerland, “for reflection and belonging.” The installation served as the festival entry point, but, modular and portable, it’s traveling around the country through 2026.