Tirana, Albania
Winy Maas and the MVRDV design team have transformed the Pyramid of Tirana, originally built as a museum dedicated to the communist dictator Enver Hoxha, has been dramatically transformed into a new kind of cultural meeting point for young Albanians.
“The first time I saw the Pyramid being walked all over by the youth of Tirana, I was deeply touched by its symbolism and by its incredible optimism”, says MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas.
“Keeping in mind this was the most expensive building the communist state had ever realized in a time when the oppressed Albanian population was living in poverty, we removed all symbols glorifying the dictatorship in our transformation. We did keep some of the original details so visitors are also aware of the building’s dark past. The structure is completely open as a ruin in the park, and all these boxes are ‘squatting’ in and around the structure. Once sardonically called the ‘Enver Hoxha Mausoleum’, the transformed Pyramid has now become a monument for the people and their ability to overcome and outlive dictators.”
Reusing the concrete structure, the Pyramid is now an open sculpture in a new park. The park and the sculpture are home to an ensemble of colorful boxes, scattered in and around the original building that house cafés, studios, workshops, start-up offices, incubators, festivals, and classrooms where Albanian youth will learn various technology subjects for free.
Steps have been added to the building’s sloping façades, allowing the people of Albania to walk all over the showpiece of the former dictator.
The work of MVRDV’s design team encompasses and encircles the existing structure, using the structure as a blueprint to which publicly accessible spaces and boxes for education and events were added.
A stack of colored boxes containing rooms for education and events are scattered in and around the structure and the park.
These colorful additions are also found on top of the structure, and in the park at the front of the building, giving the surroundings the atmosphere of a festival and even a “squatted” area.
Around half of these spaces will house non-profit educational institution TUMO Tirana, which provides free afterschool education for 12- to 18-year-olds in new techniques such as software, robotics, animation, music, and film.
Founded in Armenia in 2011 and since then spreading throughout Europe, TUMO helps to provide education and opportunities that can be a tool against the “brain drain” that threatens the economy of countries like Albania.
The other half of the colored boxes will be accessible to the public, hosting rental spaces for cafés, restaurants, start-up offices and labs, incubators, studio spaces, and more.
The transformation of the Pyramid shows how a building can be made suitable for a new era, while at the same time preserving its complex history, and demonstrates that historic brutalist buildings are ideal for reuse.
The project also meets a number of the Sustainable Development Goals outlined by the United Nations.
Rather than wastefully demolish the structure, its robust concrete shell is adapted along circular economy principles.
As the majority of the structure is open to the surroundings for most of the year, only the added boxes housing the educational program need to be climate-controlled, reducing energy consumption.
Social sustainability is advanced in the building’s new use, with the educational program advancing education and preparing the next generation for success.
Project: The Pyramid of Tirana
Architects: MVRDV
Lead Architect: Winy Maas
Design Team: Ronald Hoogeveen, Stavros Gargaretas, Guido Boeters, Angel Sanchez Navarro, Boris Tikvarski, Jasper van der Ven, Mirco Facchinelli, Manuel Magnaguagno, and Leo Stuckardt
Client: Albanian-American Development Foundation (AADF) and Municipality of Tirana
Photographers: Ossip van Duivenbode
