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Building a National Image: Architecture, Capital, and Political Power

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The Pyramid of Tirana opened as a museum to Enver Hoxha in October 1988, three years after his death and three years before the regime collapsed. In the decades that followed, it served as a radio station, a conference venue, a nightclub, and a base for NATO during the Kosovo war. In 2023, MVRDV reopened it as a park and technology school, adding steps to the façades so that the building could be walked over. The inauguration was timed to the Western Balkans Summit on 16 October, a date that some critics pointed out was Hoxha's birthday. Two projects of national self-definition, thirty-five years apart and built on opposite political premises, have used the same structure.

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Transit Oriented City – Dongtan Central Business Master Plan / Ojanen Chiou Architects + SWA Group

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Transit Oriented City – Dongtan Central Business Master Plan / Ojanen Chiou Architects + SWA Group - Featured Image
Courtesy of Ojanen_Chiou Architects + SWA Group

Designed by SWA Group with Ojanen Chiou Architects LLP, the 157 hectare Dongtan Central Business Master Plan is at the heart of Dongtan City: a new urban center located just 30 km south of Seoul in South Korea. The development zone is situated on a former agricultural plain that had been taken over by various industrial uses. Bounded by a river to the west and mountainous terrain to the east, this zone is bisected by a major transportation corridor connecting Seoul with the southern reaches of the country. At the core of the development is a transit center that will accommodate high-speed and metropolitan rail stations connecting with a bi-modal (bus + tram) transit system, and long-distance and city buses, establishing Dongtan City as a major regional transit hub. More images and architects’ description after the break.