History:
The area of the former Block is one of the most fascinating and dynamic quadrants of Tirana. The unexpected combination of the modern urban and the inherited architectures visually told, after the 90s, the city’s communist history and what followed thereafter. During Communism, the entire Block area was forbidden to ordinary citizens, who were supposedly too afraid to turn their heads and look at Hoxha’s villa from afar.
Enver Hoxha’s Villa was built in the center of this quadrant on a large piece of land surrounded by a light iron fence. Hoxha lived in this villa until the last hours of his life, leaving behind the population’s permanent curiosity on what exactly happened inside the place where Albania’s most powerful man for more than four decades organized his life. Built after the 1960s, the older part of the building mimics 1930s architecture while the new part is a massive concrete block, covered with white stone tiles, making the villa look like both a residence and a fortified structure. The house has remained exactly as Hoxha’s family left it.
