Street Luan Haradinaj

The Palace of Youth and Sports is a hall located in the center of Prishtina. It includes a shopping mall, indoor parking, two convention halls, and a library. A referendum was held in 1975 where citizens of Prishtina voted in favor of building a multifunctional hall. It was finished in 1977 and was originally named Boro and Ramiz, after two World War II Yugoslav partisans of Serbian and Albanian origin. The building carries a lot of trauma and was heavily damaged in a fire in 2000. Now it is partly restored, but much of the damage is still visible. Its original asymmetric structure reflects its position between failed utopia, oblivion, and a new beginning materialized in the Newborn monument erected after the declaration of the independence of Kosovo in 2008. It is an urban site in which stories of Kosovo’s turbulent past and present live in its architecture.