The sprawling, space-age “pyramid” in Tirana’s center had many uses before falling into ruin: Built as a museum for a dictator, it later hosted a NATO base, TV studio, nightclub and more.
After years of neglect, the crumbling structure is now set for another rebirth as an information technology hub in the heart of Albania’s fast-changing capital.
“I don’t think there is anyone who thinks it is beautiful, but it’s a sort of a landmark of the city and people want to preserve them in a city that has lost a lot” to development, said Joni Baboci, a city hall architect involved with the redesign.
Photo: AFP
The 11,400m2 behemoth has triangular wedges of graffiti-covered marble and dark window panes that meet at a peak, giving it the pyramid look.
For the project’s architects, its overhaul is about striking a balance between preserving and reclaiming a relic from a dark period of Albanian history.
The bizarre building was erected 30 years ago to glorify the life of then-dictator Enver Hoxha, who ruthlessly ruled Albania for four decades until his death in 1985.
After communism collapsed a few years later, the museum was shuttered and the pyramid became a venue for a merry-go-round of uses, reflecting the explosion of culture in a nation that had been hermetically sealed under Hoxha’s iron grip.
However, for the past 10 years the building has sat virtually abandoned, aside from the locals and tourists who can be seen scaling its walls for the 360° city view at the top.
When authorities announced plans to demolish the pyramid several years ago, protests broke out, revealing how the unusual monument had won its way into people’s hearts.
The demolition plan was scrapped and city hall came back last year with a project to turn the pyramid into a digital learning center.
“We thought there couldn’t be a better symbol than giving the building back to Albanian society in its best form, to the kids, for their future education,” said Martin Mata, of the Albanian-American Development Foundation, which is funding the more than US$10 million renovation.
It is a fitting purpose for a nation suffering from high youth unemployment and emigration rates.
Designs revealed last month by Dutch firm MVRDV open the structure on all sides of the ground floor, bring light into the atrium with more glass, surround it with trees and carve stairs onto its exterior to make the pyramid walls a safer climb.
“The pyramid will be open to everyone” and the building will be nearly “transparent,” chief architect Winy Maas said at a presentation in Tirana.
Inside will be a mix of commercial space and a learning center for young people, run by non-profit group Tumo, offering classes in computer programming, design and other digital skills.
For Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj the project is a “story of resurrection” — for the pyramid and Albania itself.
“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the start of [Albania’s] transition, the question has been how do we make Albania great again?” he said.
The pyramid’s renovation is part of a dizzying amount of transformation that the nation’s capital has undergone.
The collapse of communism unleashed a massive wave of migration from rural areas to the capital, leading to unchecked construction, an explosion of vehicles and chaotic urban spaces.
As mayor of Tirana in the early 2000s, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama gave the city a major facelift by splashing its drab communist buildings with bright colors and bold patterns.
Veliaj says he is trying to further spruce up the city by cracking down on illegal construction, creating more parks and turning a massive Skanderbeg Square traffic roundabout into a pedestrian space.
The changes are raising Tirana’s profile on the tourist map.
Its vibrant cafe scene now comes in for praise, as well as the unique hodgepodge of architecture, including Italian fascist buildings, Soviet-style tower blocks, Ottoman-era mosques and, of course, the pyramid, but not all of city hall’s revamps are popular.
There have been regular protests in the last year over plans to knock down homes and shops for a ring road.
In the city center, a crowd has been demonstrating daily against a government-backed project to bulldoze Tirana’s national theater, built in 1930, and replace it with a modern one.
As for the pyramid, some would have preferred to see it become an archeology museum or national library, among other things, but for Rama, the transformation of a “symbol of dictatorship” to a “symbol of each individual’s power in a new time” is an apt road map.
“I am happy that we have managed to solve a problem that has vexed us for 30 years now,” he said.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
RSS