Tirana's Pyramid in front of the Downtown One Building, both from MVRDV

That we Europeans profess a profound, historical ignorance of Albania is proven by the fact that when referring to the Balkan country, we always go to that adjective, ‘Balkan.’ As a good tailor’s box, Balkan serves to combine topics – mountains, religions, wars, Sarajevo – that veil with exotic images and general intuitions what is really nothing but ignorance. Our lack of knowledge of Albanian (Balkan) architecture is even greater. No matter how much we may wear out atlases and history books, we cannot think of any landmark building other than the Pyramid of Tirana, the cenotaph to the memory of Socialist dictator Enver Hoxha built in a late brutalist style in 1988, and which the winds of time have turned into conference center, discotheque, NATO headquarters, and even film set of expendable movies...