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From state secrecy to public legibility: adaptive reuse of the Bunk’Art pair and the Gjirokastër Cold War Tunnel

  • Vjola Ilia
  • Florian Nepravishta
  • Sokol Allaraj

Albania’s communist bunkerisation programme produced an extensive militarised landscape, yet its institutional underground structures remain insufficiently theorised within adaptive reuse and difficult heritage studies. This paper examines Bunk’Art 1 and Bunk’Art 2 in Tirana as a dual system of memory. Through case-study analysis, in-situ observation, photogrammetric documentation, and international comparison, it argues that their value lies in their complementarity: together, they reveal the spatial duality of totalitarian rule, between regime survival and societal control. The study proposes cultural monument designation, legislative refinement and a phased national inventory as policy tools for conservation.

  • Keywords:
  • Adaptive reuse,
  • Underground built heritage,
  • Difficult heritage,
  • Public legibility,
  • Albania,
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Vjola Ilia

University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy - ORCID: 0009-0001-9836-0105

Florian Nepravishta

Polytechnic University of Tirana, Albania - ORCID: 0000-0002-3815-0712

Sokol Allaraj

Polytechnic University of Tirana, Albania

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  • Anno di pubblicazione: 2026
  • Pagine: 1838-1864

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Informazioni sul capitolo

Titolo del capitolo

From state secrecy to public legibility: adaptive reuse of the Bunk’Art pair and the Gjirokastër Cold War Tunnel

Autori

Vjola Ilia, Florian Nepravishta, Sokol Allaraj

Lingua

Inglese

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-1113-0.80

Opera sottoposta a peer review

Anno di pubblicazione

2026

Copyright

© 2026 Author(s)

Licenza d'uso

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Licenza dei metadati

CC0 1.0

Informazioni bibliografiche

Titolo del libro

ReUso 2026 - New heritage and future strategies. Perspectives on conservation and promotion

Sottotitolo del libro

14th International Congress Barcelona-Girona, 4-7 November

Curatori

Alessandro Scarnato, Marisa García Vergara, Ángeles Layuno Rosas

Opera sottoposta a peer review

Anno di pubblicazione

2026

Copyright

© 2026 Author(s)

Licenza d'uso

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Licenza dei metadati

CC0 1.0

Editore

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-1113-0

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979-12-215-1113-0

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979-12-215-1112-3

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