SOCIALIST INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE IN ALBANIA

After the fall of the socialist regime in 1990, Albania, today, is undergoing a strong period of economic growth. For the Albanian government, the time has come to develop strategies which target the large abandoned industrial heritage, characterized by high architectural quality. This is due to the use of U.R.S.S. and chinese constructive technologies, which have ensured a long life to these buildings. The purpose of the thesis is to research the reconversion of the most important ex-thermoelectric powerplant of the country (T.E.C. 1966),placed in the neighbourhood of Fier.

Through a typological study of industrial remains, we distinguished between “big industrial containing objects”, and “small industrial contained objects”; we identified modular relationships and dimensional consonances between the group of buildings. The project has two main goals: transforming the exterior ground surface from an industrial and functionalist space to a public one whilst converting the interior to a culturally oriented space, in order to create a positive dialogue between the existing industrial machines (turbines and boilers) and the new elements of project.

This cultural and interactive space, placed in the suggestive ex engine room of T.E.C. 1966, consists of co-working laboratories, a great museum, didactic areas, a conference hall and aspires to recompose the relationship between regional inhabitants and the memory of their territory full of traditions. The exterior design tries to amend the conflict that exists between natural elements and the factory through the projection of green plots which bring inside the public space different aspects of the albanian landscape, characterized by lagoons, huges, farms.