The pyramid, as it's popularly known, opened in 1988 as a museum dedicated to the Albanian dictator-cum-pharaoh Enver Hoxha. Designed by Hoxha's daughter Pranvera, the building was reportedly the most expensive ever erected in Albania. After the regime collapsed, the place became a conference center and location of a club (called The Mummy, of course). Now semi-derelict, the government wants to demolish it to make place for new parliament buildings, though there's a healthy heated debate about the destruction of the past and preservation of the park going on.
In front of the building, the Peace Bell installation was made in 1999 as a memorial to peace by the children of Shkodra. The bell's metal comes from thousands of bullet cartridges, fired off during the lawless 1990s.
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