A festival of hospitality, architecture & dialogue on the future, where global visionaries & local perspectives meet, exchange & inspire.

Following last year’s inaugural edition, Bread & Heart Festival returns to the Book Building in the center of Tirana as an annual rendezvous with the future. Under the theme “Landscapes of Abundance”, this year’s edition shifts its attention from isolated buildings to the spaces between them: landscapes, ecologies, infrastructures, and living systems shaping Albania. Framed by the curatorial idea “From Portrait to Landscape”, the Festival explores how architecture, landscape architecture, ecology, art, and culture can collectively respond to the rapid transformations happening across the country.

More than a conventional architecture event, Bread & Heart is conceived as a shared environment for dialogue, reflection, hospitality, and exchange. Through talks, exhibitions, workshops, films, performances, food, and informal encounters, the Festival creates opportunities for local and international practitioners, institutions, artists, researchers, and audiences to meet and engage with one another. Beyond celebration, the Festival opens space for critique and discussion around the role of architecture, development, and culture in shaping shared futures.

Currently, around 200 international architecture teams are contributing to projects throughout Albania through competitions, commissions, research, and collaborations with local offices. To acknowledge and expand this growing network, the Festival invites these architects to gather in Tirana, each bringing along a guest of their choice — a new friend of and for Albania (hence, “bring some salt”).