Pyramid of Tirana (Enver Hoxha Pyramid)

The Tirana Pyramid is a structure and former museum in Tirana, Albania’s capital. It began as a museum in 1988 and was repurposed as a conference facility after the fall of Communism in 1991. The facility was utilized as a NATO base during the 1999 Kosovo War. In 2018, a new project was announced that will transform the Pyramid into an IT center for kids focused on computer programming, robotics, and start-ups.

The Enver Hoxha Museum opened on 14 October 1988, initially as a museum dedicated to the legacy of Enver Hoxha, the long-serving leader of Communist Albania who died three years before. Pranvera Hoxha, an architect, and her husband Klement Kolaneci, as well as Pirro Vaso and Vladimir Bregu, collaborated on the structure’s design.

When it was created, the Pyramid was claimed to be the most costly single edifice ever built in Albania. The Pyramid has sometimes been sarcastically referred to as the “Enver Hoxha Mausoleum,” despite the fact that this was never its original usage or official designation.

Following the fall of Communism in 1991, the Pyramid stopped operation as a museum and was transformed as a conference facility and exhibition venue for many years before receiving its present designation. NATO and humanitarian groups utilized the old museum as a base during the 1999 Kosovo War.

Since 2001, a portion of the Pyramid has served as a broadcasting center for Albanian media outlets Top Channel and Top Albania Radio, while the remainder of the structure and the paved surrounding area (which is currently being used as a parking lot and bus station for minivans to Elbasan) have deteriorated and been vandalized.

The Pyramid was included in a segment of Armando Lulaj’s 2011 film It Wears as it Grows.The Pyramid was also utilized as a setting for a portion of the remake of the 1995 classic horror film Castle Freak in 2019.

Numerous plans have been made to destroy the Pyramid and convert the complex’s 17,000-square-metre (1.7-hectare) area for different purposes, the most notable of which being the proposed construction of a new Albanian parliament building on the site.

A prior plan to develop the property into a new opera theater was authorized but was subsequently canceled soon after building started. The structure’s external marble tiles were removed and stored at a facility outside of Tirana. The projected removal of the Pyramid sparked debate among many prominent international architects, who expressed both support and opposition. Historian Ardian Klosi organized a petition against the structure’s destruction, which garnered over 6000 signatures. According to a 2015 research conducted in 2013, the majority of Tirana residents were opposed to the destruction.