Debunking the Past - A Descent Through Memory, Architecture, and Ruin

Albania’s landscape is etched with the remnants of a totalitarian past, most notably through its widespread network of bunkers constructed at the peak of the Cold War under Dictator Enver Hoxha. Among them, the "Big Bunker," situated in the Ceraunian Mountains overlooking the Ionian Sea, stands as both a monumental relic and a spatial threshold between past and future. This thesis reimagines the Big Bunker not merely as an object of preservation but as a site of transformation: an architectural journey through memory, ideology, and renewal. Through a qualitative case study combining on-site observation, architectural analysis, and historical research, the project documents the current condition of the Big Bunker’s three-story structure and its underground tunnels, highlighting the layered decay and residual power embedded in its forms. Drawing conceptual parallels to Dante’s Divine Comedy, the design proposes a descent into the subterranean spaces as an allegory for confronting historical trauma, a passage through liminal tunnels symbolizing collective introspection, and an emergence into the open landscape as a metaphor for liberation and rebirth. The intervention envisions adaptive reuse strategies that preserve the bunker’s raw materiality while introducing minimal, poetic architectural gestures: spaces for solitude, reflection, and slow movement. Ultimately, this project positions the Big Bunker as a vessel for Albania’s evolving identity, transforming an emblem of control into a landscape of contemplation.