On October 14, 1988, the Enver Hoxha Museum, widely known as the Pyramid of Tirana, was inaugurated.

This museum is perhaps the most complex and accomplished work of socialist architecture in Albania. The formal and spatial solutions, the structure and construction technology are synchronized here, creating a building that is both monumental and symbolic, and atypical for the time.
The work was designed by Klement Kolaneci, Pranvera Hoxha, Pirro Vaso and Vladimir Bregu to immortalize the figure of the dictator after his death, but it only managed to fulfill this function for a short time, until the beginning of the democratic movement and the fall of communism in 1991.

The building then underwent a long history of transition. Initially, it was transformed into the International Cultural Center, becoming one of the most vibrant public facilities in the capital. In 2007, there was an attempt to turn it into the National Theater.

It was threatened with demolition in 2010 for the construction of the New Parliamentary Complex, becoming part of a political battle, and was then left in complete degradation.

Deep Metamorphosis
The project presented in 2018 to transform the abandoned Pyramid into a Technology Center for Youth was able to be realized five years later. This intervention completely transformed the character and image of the building, previously declared a cultural monument. While preserving only the external silhouette, the intervention has alienated the essence of the original structure.
Much history remains from the former Pyramid, but little architectural evidence.

The case of the Pyramid raises a fundamental question about 20th-century heritage. Where does a restoration or adaptation intervention end and where does the violation and alienation of an architectural work begin?