The Destructive Rebirth of the Pyramid

Author: Skender Luarasi
Affiliation: Polis University

Abstract
More than a decade has passed since the heated debates on the destruction of the Pyramid of Tirana, and its substitution with the new Albanian Parliament, a winning competition entry by Coop Himmelb(l)au. Whether it should have been demolished or not, and whether there should have been a parliament in its place or not, were two diferent debates erroneously packed in one. This debate degraded into a false either-or political choice, namely, that between a new Albanian parliament building that would symbolize the democratic values and a building that presumably embodied the values and memories of the old communist regime, as the former Museum of Enver Hoxha, Albania’s communist dictator. The parliament proposal, however, was only an unambiguous instance of a destruction process and a destructive force that had already started and continues to this very day. The Parliament proposal did not go forward, yet the Pyramid was eventually not saved. I would argue that it is only today at the very moment of its ‘revival’ or ‘rebirth’ into a digital hub through a design of MVRDV that the Pyramid is fnally destroyed. What MVRDV’s design destroys is the only thing that Pyramid