Between the lights of public life and the tranquility of home, Pristina's first couple talks about identity, the "thorns and roses" of everyday life, parenting and dedication that does not require a stage - A story about love that is built every day
On a day when love is measured by flowers and perfect photographs, they choose to talk about something deeper: about silent commitment, about the dialogue that keeps a marriage alive, about roots that are not forgotten, and about the daily building that does not require applause.
Kristale Ivezaj-Rama and Përparim Rama are not only the first couple of the capital. She restores memory to walls; he designs cities. She illuminates the layers of the past; he thinks about the urban future. Between these two worlds, an architecture of love has been built that is not held by symbolism, but by responsibility.
In this exclusive account, they talk about life under public scrutiny, about silent compromises, and about their children, Nut, Tiger, and Bron, growing up in a home where aesthetics are not decor, but a way of life.
Because the strongest love is not what it seems.
It is what it is.
Identity beyond the public role
Ms. Ivezaj-Rama, there is often talk of “the woman next to the successful man.” How would you define yourself beyond this definition and how do you maintain your personal identity within the public life you share?
It is very important for us, as individuals and as families, to truly know ourselves and be honest with each other.
The Mind of Progress moves forward, while I often turn back, drawn by the research of history, so that we can build on sound ground.
We work on opposite ends of the spectrum: he looks forward, I look back. I think that makes our home a healthy place, where both perspectives are honored and balanced.
For me, as a journalist with a background in investigative journalism, knowing the truth is essential.
Whether dealing with intergenerational trauma, such as the injustice of Albania’s 46 years of regime, the internment camps and political prisons of Enver Hoxha, or uncovering the story of a forgotten family member, I am deeply committed to filling the gaps. I do this so that our generation and those to come are whole, healthy and empowered. How can we honor the past? Where is the pain? What can we do to bring light and healing? I see the world within this context.
Mr. Rama, leadership requires determination, while love requires sensitivity. How do these two dimensions coexist in your life, without overshadowing each other?
Leadership and love are not opposites; for me they complement each other. Determination without sensitivity risks becoming cold, while sensitivity without responsibility loses direction. In my life, these two dimensions coexist through the awareness that every public decision always has a human impact.
Love keeps me connected to reality, to everyday life, and to responsibility towards people. Leadership, on the other hand, requires clarity, courage, and consistency. When these two forces are in balance, decisions are not weakened by empathy, but strengthened by it.
I believe that the best leadership is the one that never loses the human dimension. And the most lasting love is the one that knows how to take responsibility.
Living your love life under public scrutiny is a form of modern pressure. Do you ever feel the need to protect your space from outside opinion, comments, and expectations? What advice would you give to couples who choose the public life?
Progress Rama: Public life naturally brings attention and differing opinions. Kristalja and I try to stay focused on the goal. We do our work with honesty and we do not measure ourselves by public noise, but by effort and conscience.
We respect people's opinions. Freedom of expression is a core value for us. At the same time, we maintain our inner clarity. What keeps us going is simple: raising healthy, happy children and serving the city with integrity.
For couples choosing a public life, my advice is this: clearly define your values before others try to define them for you. Communicate openly and protect your private space. Public roles change, but partnership must remain the foundation.
The meeting that started it all
Mr. Rama, builder of real bridges between cities, and Ms. Ivezaj-Rama, creator of emotional bridges through art, how do you remember your first meeting today? Was it a quiet acquaintance, or an immediate feeling that you had someone special in front of you?
Our story began in 2009. I was invited as a speaker at a conference in Abu Dhabi on the future of capital cities, where I would present the urban master plan of Pristina, while I was completing my PhD in urban planning. Kristale was the program developer and delegation coordinator for this event.
Due to a personal emergency, I was unable to attend, and our first connection was established through electronic communication. What began as a professional collaboration gradually transformed into conversations about ideas, philosophy, and life.
When we first met in New York a year later, the feeling was immediate. It didn't feel like meeting someone new, but like meeting someone important. Within eight months we were engaged and two years later we were married. Today, sixteen years later, that feeling continues.
In your evening conversations, where does the architect's vision for the city end and the curator's aesthetic perspective begin? Do you enrich and challenge each other through dialogue?
Kristale Ivezaj-Rama: We enrich each other’s dialogue and always try to bring light to difficult conversations. Progress and I are solution-oriented thinkers, and while we honor the emotional tone of a topic, our minds naturally seek out the lessons and light within it. That’s where our similarities lie. We also love to laugh and joke. Progress is incredibly hilarious and makes me laugh a lot.
I ask my kids the same question after school about their day: “What were the thorns and what were the roses of your day?” In the same way, Progress and I talk about our days, the thorns and the roses, and we always try our best to end with laughter.
The house as memory and vision
Ms. Ivezaj-Rama, with the work “Even Walls Have Ears” and Mr. Rama, with the architectural visions presented at the Venice Biennale - is your home today a space where artistic memory and design coexist?
Progress Rama: For me, space has always been more than physical structure. Cities carry emotions, buildings preserve memories, and public spaces directly influence how people feel about themselves and each other.
Kristalja has a deep approach to history and collective memory, while I am more oriented towards the future and urban development. These two perspectives complement each other. She asks where we come from; I ask where we are going.
Our home reflects this dialogue. It is a space where reflection and vision coexist. Where the past is respected and the future is built responsibly.
At the Venice Biennale, the focus of my work was the way citizens emotionally experience Prishtina and its spaces. Architecture, for me, is not just a building, but a human experience. This conviction guides both my public engagement and my private life.
Your family roots have been shaped by various experiences of displacement and displacement. How has this legacy influenced your concept of “home”? Is your love an architecture that carries the memory of the journey, a space that is built and rebuilt wherever the soul stops?
Progress Rama: The history of our region is marked by movement, displacement, and permanence. Generations before us have lived with uncertainty, but have maintained their identity. This legacy has influenced the way I understand home.
For me, home is not just defined by geography. It is about responsibility, belonging, and family stability. It is the place where children feel safe and where the work they do has meaning.
We carry the memory of migration, but also the strength to build continuity. Wherever we build stability together, home is created.
Kristale Ivezaj-Rama: As descendants of countless migrations and survivors over generations, we carry the legacy of movement in our veins. From the Etruscans, the Illyrians, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ottomans, to the small Celtic traces that my DNA reveals, our history has always been a story of travel. What I have come to realize is that my home is where my children are.
People are resilient and we will flourish wherever we plant, because we are healthy seeds. Wherever we go together becomes our home and, to me, “together” means life is good.
Parenting as the foundation of the city
How do Nut, Tiger and Broni grow in a space where art, memory and light shape everyday life and the look towards the future?
Progress Rama: Parenting is the greatest responsibility of my life. Public duties are temporary, while fatherhood is permanent.
I try to be present in everyday things: playing soccer with the kids, reading together, spending quality time. Leadership starts at home. If I'm not present for my children, no public accomplishments matter.
Every child carries incredible potential. Our job as parents is to create an environment where self-confidence grows naturally and where they feel supported and challenged.
Kristale Ivezaj-Rama: Being a parent is the greatest role of a lifetime, and we want to give our children experiences that build strong character and develop real life skills. We want them to truly enjoy childhood. It is the shortest season of a person's life. It is the only time they can be fully children, and we want these years to be rich with meaningful connections and contact with people from different cultures.
We read a lot together and cook together. Our daughter loves to cook and our boys help me clean the house. We work as a team and laugh a lot.
I believe in sensitive parenting. We encourage curiosity, are deeply interested in their thoughts and interpretations, and, above all, we want their inner world to be as vibrant and rich as possible. Progress and I often take them with us on dates and travel together. We are a unit and share a strong bond, which we have cultivated since their infancy. We spend a lot of time in nature walking the paths of Gërmia.
One of my favorite sayings, and one I like to share with new parents, is: “Speak like kings and kings will appear.”
I cherish this memory because children grow by the way we see them and speak to them. When we treat them with dignity, respect, and faith in their potential, they often grow in that very strength. Children are miracles, full of possibility, depth, and silent grandeur waiting to be awakened.
What would Pristina look like if it were designed based on the emotional needs and imagination of children?
Progress Rama: If Pristina were designed with the emotional needs and imagination of children in mind, it would be a softer, safer, and more open city. There would be more green spaces, more thoughtful play areas, safe sidewalks, and places where children could move freely without fear.
But, above all, it would be a city that listens to children. A city that understands that creativity, play, and a sense of belonging are just as important as infrastructure. Children don't think in administrative boundaries; they think in colors, in movement, in possibilities.
If we build the city with this logic, we not only create a better environment for them, but we create a better city for everyone. Because a city that works for children is a city that works for every citizen. And that's exactly what we're doing in the Capital.
From London, where art is often provocative and challenging, to Pristina, where your focus has shifted to safe spaces for children: what has changed most for you in your sensitivity and approach as a curator?
Kristale Ivezaj-Rama: Although my focus has shifted to a different generation, what remains the same is my desire to meet needs. I still look at a culture critically and adopt a countercultural approach when things don't improve. Art arises from the need to express oneself or bring about change, and in that sense, I am working within the same mindset. The difference now is that I am focusing on children, giving them the spaces they need to create art and grow into the artists, teachers, scientists, and stars they are destined to become.
How much has your experience as a mother influenced the way you understand art, memory, and responsibility towards public space today?
Kristale Ivezaj-Rama: Motherhood has completely transformed me. It has electrified my entire being. I live for my children and I see every child around me as mine. I am completely dedicated as a mother and it would be a dream come true to make Prishtina a more loving and compassionate place for all children, because this is my home now and this is where I can make a difference. Every child deserves the best possible start in life; they do not choose to be born, yet they look to us as adults to guide their path.
This is the inspiration behind the Pristina Children's Library: the urgent need to create and rebuild safe and beautiful learning spaces for children.
Pristina is a city of families and children and there should be countless spaces where children feel invited and safe, no matter the weather, no matter the day. Every child should have places where they feel safe, celebrated and welcomed.
Love beyond the calendar
What is the most difficult compromise that public life has required of you as a couple?
Progress Rama: The most difficult compromise that public life has required of us as a couple has been time management and privacy. When you are in public service, the boundaries between professional and personal life often blur, and this requires constant awareness.
We have learned that maintaining our private space is essential to the sustainability of the relationship. This compromise is not about withdrawing from public responsibility, but about protecting what keeps us strong as a family.
In the end, we have come to understand that a stable couple is also the healthiest basis for honest and responsible public engagement.
When public life imposes pace, attention, and lack of time, what remains unchanged between you, despite dates and symbolism?
Progress Rama: When public life imposes pace, attention, and lack of time on us, what remains unchanged between us is "us," the way we choose each other even when everything else pulls us in different directions.
What remains is the trust that needs no explanation, the respect that does not depend on the eyes of others, and the peace that only Kristalja gives me, the feeling that, no matter the day, I return to Kristalja, to home.
Dates and symbolism are beautiful, but they are just marks on the calendar. What matters to me is our daily care: a “how are you?”, a “I’m here,” a small thought in a busy day, and the fact that, even when we don’t have time, our hearts still find time for each other.
Valentine's Day brings love back into the public spotlight every year. For both of you, what distinguishes the love that is expressed one day a year from the one that is lived in silence every other day?
Progress Rama: Valentine's Day is symbolic and serves as a break from the daily routine. However, love is not only sustained by symbols.
True love is built on a daily basis, through patience, compromise, and shared responsibility. It doesn't need noise, but consistency. It's choosing each other every day, not just on special occasions.
The public sees the obvious moments. What keeps a marriage strong is constant, quiet, and conscious commitment.
Kristale Ivezaj-Rama: Saint Valentine was a priest in Rome during the third century. When Emperor Claudius II forbade young men from marrying, believing that single men made better soldiers, Valentine quietly chose love over fear and performed marriages in secret. He was later arrested for defying the law, but even in prison he showed kindness and compassion. Before his execution, he signed a letter: “From your Valentine,” a phrase that has stuck for centuries.
Yes, I know this story. That's exactly why I love this holiday.
I try to live every day by the example of Saint Valentine. On his feast day it feels especially nice to focus on love all day long and show others that we care. I love Progress, our children, our family and our friends. And to you, Mr. Kajtazi, I wish you a very happy Saint Valentine's Day and I hope that everyone who reads this article experiences a life filled with love.
If your married life were a work of art, which style would it belong to: modern minimalism or a complex mosaic full of contrasts? And, to close this journey, what would you say to young couples who are drawing the first lines of their life together?
Kristale Ivezaj-Rama: For me, our love mirrors the landscapes of painters like JMW Turner, Albert Bierstadt or sometimes Claude Monet, emotional landscapes that remain powerful in any condition. Our marriage carries light and storm, depth and distance, but always hope and illumination. It is alive, shaped by the changing seasons, but rooted in something strong and enduring.
My advice to young couples is this: hold on tight to each other. Marriage is for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer. This is your closest companion for life, your best friend. Choose carefully. And once you choose, choose that person again and again, every day. /Telegraph/
