Tempus
|
|
Tidskriften
|
tidigare veckor: |
Government plans to demolish the pyramid-like structure erected in honour of Albania’s late Communist dictator have sown discord among urban activists who see the monument as part of Albania’s history, rather than as a symbol of the former regime.
The mausoleum of Enver Hoxha, who ruled the country with an iron fist for nearly half-a-century, is located in one of the few parks that have survived the chaotic urban development that Albania’s capital has experienced in the past two decades.
After the Communist regime collapsed
in 1991, the building was first transformed into a cultural centre,
hosting fine art exhibitions, concerts, beauty pageants, book
fairs and other events.
The structure now hosts the National Children’s Cultural
Centre and an International Cultural Centre, apart from the offices
of the popular commercial TV station, Top-Channel.
Erected in 1988, three years after Hoxha’s death, the former
museum is a concrete and glass building clad with slabs of marble
that some liken to a cross between an Aztec pyramid and a spaceship.
Because its architectural value, three years ago it was declared
a cultural monument.
But after years of neglect and a mishandled
attempts to transform the building into a theatre and a library,
the structure, built at an exorbitant cost for the then cash-strapped
Communist regime, lies in ruin.
Stripped of its Carrara marble slabs, with a leaking roof that
allows the water to drip in and half demolished by the attempts
to restore it that were never completed, it awaits demolition.
Despite its poor state, a group of
architects and activists have risen in its defence, arguing that
the plan to demolish the building to make space for the new parliament
is based on purely ideological arguments.
Some 6,000 people have signed an online petition opposing the
pyramid’s demolition, while several rallies have been held
in support of its preservation.
Artan Shkreli, former director of
the Institute of Monuments, says that the ideological arguments
for the demolition of the building are absurd.
“The [architectural] values of the pyramid cannot be wiped
out,” he said, adding that Albania’s rulers “were
ignoring the calls of public opinion”.
Maks Velo, an architect and former political prisoner agreed,
underlining that there was no need to demolish the pyramid in
order to erase painful memories of the Hoxha regime.
“The pyramid is not property of the Hoxha family and he cannot
be used as an argument for its demolition,” Velo said.
“It was built with the people’s money and our elected
government should do all it can to protect it as part of the country’s
cultural heritage,” he concluded.
The pyramid was constructed from 1985
to 1988 at a cost of 3 million euro.
According to Klement Kolaneci, Hoxha’s son-in law and the
chief architect of the museum, the same structure today would
cost about 60 million euro.
In the past five years the centre-right government of Prime Minister
Sali Berisha, has drawn and re-draw plans to change the building’s
fate, spending millions in the process.
After being elected in 2005 Berisha
first proposed to transform the pyramid into the national library,
because the building housing the latter was in poor shape.
A year later the pyramid was transformed into the International
Cultural Centre Pjeter Arbnori, named after the late parliamentary
speaker and political prisoner who died that year. The plan to
transform it into a library was wiped from the drawing board.
“The government then allocated a fund for its reconstruction
and one year later declared it a protected cultural monument,”
Artan Lame, director of the Forum for the Protection of the Historic
Heritage of Albania, recalls.
However, in 2008 Berisha changed his
mind and asked the Ministry of Culture to transform the building
into a pantheon that would host a theatre, a music auditorium,
an art gallery, an underground library and a youth centre.
New projects were drawn up for the centre and tenders for the
architectural firm were held, but later that year the Prime Minister
changed his mind once more and asked the ministry to transform
the building into a national theatre.
In January 2009 the authorities mulled
an idea to construct an obelisk in remembrance of the victims
of the Communist regime in front of the pyramid but this never
realized.
In November 2010, in another twist, Berisha decided “that
in order to exorcise the ghost of the dictator, it had to be demolished
from the ground up,” and a new parliament built on the site.
For the premier, the Hoxha pyramid was now only millions of euro
wasted on “Hoxha nostalgia,” and its fate was sealed.
Although Albania’s assembly is
better known for unseemly brawls rather than for adoption of top-quality
laws, speaker Jozefina Topalli has insisted that the existing
parliament is not good enough for MPs.
The complex, sited close to the palace of former King Zog I, and
built in 1952, “does not match the standards of parliaments
in EU countries, or those in the region,” she declared, although
the building had received a million-euro facelift just one year
before.
Although the pyramid’s fate now
seems sealed, Aldo Merkoci, an activist from Mjaft, a local NGO,
says that even if it is flattened, its architectural and social
legacy will remain.
“The pyramid is a historical and cultural monument of Tirana,
is part of the historic memory of every citizen of Tirana and
will remain part of that memory for long time in future,”
he said.
