Bunk’Art 2

This an excellent re-imagining of a Communist-era nuclear bunker, Bunk’Art 2 museum and art space reflects Tirana’s initiative to use culture to celebrate the birth of a new era, whilst remembering its solemn past.

Bunk’Art 2, at approximately 1,000 m2 in size, is the second of two nuclear bunkers in Tirana that has recently transformed into an interactive artistic space. Secretly built from 1981-86, beneath the Ministry of Internal Affairs along the city’s main boulevard, the underground structure was given the code name ‘Object Pole’ in order to keep its construction undetected.

The journey through this tunnel unmasks the pathological isolation and paranoia felt by Albania for 45 years. Each of its 24 rooms recount stories of the political persecutions of approximately 100,000 Albanians from 1945-1991, the creation of Sigurimi (the state security) during Communism, and exhibitions showing the state’s means of persecution during this dark period of history. The journey nicely concludes on the boulevard facing the setting sun, aptly symbolizing the idea that all tyrannical regimes eventually end.

*The rectangular piece of concrete with graffiti is a piece of the Berlin Wall.