In the city of Prizren, Kosovo, an Innovation and Training Park (ITP) has been established at a former German military camp that was part of the international Kosovo Force (KFOR) peacekeeping mission.

For hundreds of years, the compound of the Innovation and Training Park (ITP) in Prizren was used as a shelter for the army. On June 13, 1999, German KFOR troops entered the city of Prizren. German KFOR troops were stationed in a former military camp in the eastern suburb of the city of Prizren. This camp had been used for military purposes since 1906 when the soldiers of the Ottoman Empire first occupied it. For another hundred years, the camp became home to the Jugoslav military personnel.

This camp consists of an area of 39 hectares and has the capacity to accommodate more than 2,0000 soldiers. Since 1999, the German Government has invested millions in reconstruction and building new premises in this camp. These buildings include 23 accommodation houses, administrative buildings, maintenance buildings, workshop sheds, a sports facility, recreation facilities such as cafés, a modern canteen and a hospital.

With the declaration of Kosovo’s independence in 2008, the number of KFOR troops in this camp was gradually reduced. Ten years later, in December 2018 the whole camp was emptied when German troops walked out of it for the last time.

The military base, which is a public property managed by the government, generated a lot of public discussion about its next destination. The German government offered help by engaging the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), to do a feasibility study around the idea for civilian use of the current camp area. This study proposed to set up the Kosovar-German Innovation and Training Park (ITP), which combines space for companies, vocational education and training, academic institutions, government institutions and non-governmental organizations.

Autostrada Biennale Hangar opens its doors in one of the ex-KFOR military hangars used by the German army in Prizren 20 years ago.

The vision was to demilitarise space, rethink usage structures, and involve youngsters in progress to transform it into education, activity, and co-working center using different innovations, creativity, and cultural effects. To improve the level of development in creativity and the cultural field by bringing benefits to the economy and society of the country.