Some 120 Italians forming part of the industrial maritime archaeology conservation movement Areamedinit will be in Malta today and tomorrow for an event aimed at highlighting the rich industrial maritime archaeology of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Speaking to The Malta Independent, event organiser and erstwhile maritime journalist and author Enrico Gurioli explained how this weekend’s event will mark the organisation’s seventh meeting, as well as being the first organised outside Italy.

Through the two-day event, themed The Industrial Archaeology of the Sea and the Environment, the organisation will aim to achieve two main objectives while in Malta.

The first will be to lay the groundwork for collaboration between the University of Malta and the Politechnico di Milano, bringing together people with a background in port architecture. The initiative should next year see a group of like-minded individuals and students travelling by ship from Genoa, and possibly as far as Malta, to observe the land from the sea.

“While most speak of waterfronts where the sea is viewed from the land,” Mr Gurioli explained, “we instead speak of ‘landfronts’, or rather what a port looks like to those arriving by sea. These are, of course, two entirely different perspectives.”

But, he adds, the two perspectives are not always complementary. “A grand waterfront could be a horrible landfront.”

Secondly, the organisation will be developing its idea of fostering cooperation between governments and operators around the Mediterranean with a view to forming a permanent committee that would draw up an inventory of the Mediterranean’s industrial archaeology.

Mr Gurioli disparages the common sentiment that tends to disregard the industrial maritime past, where warehouses and other such structures – sometimes of enormous historical value – are overlooked and replaced by modern structures, thereby losing important elements of the past.

In Italy and across the Mediterranean, Mr Gurioli pointed out through a number of examples, there has been a widespread destruction of these symbols of sea-based work and culture.

This weekend’s event stems from what Mr Gurioli described as a “casual meeting” with Competitiveness and Communications Minister Censu Galea in Bologna, who oversees Malta’s ports, followed up by another with Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech in Malta.

While the event will lay emphasis on the government’s 20-point plan for the Grand Harbour, Mr Gurioli stresses the organisation never enters into the merits of a development but only into safeguarding what is essentially an important part of history that is often overlooked and swallowed up by sequential developments.

“We are essentially a group of people sharing a common feeling – we have realised that Italy and the Mediterranean have destroyed and are continuing to destroy the symbols of our maritime industry,” Mr Gurioli comments.

“We have, especially in Italy, a significant anti-industrial, pro-environment cultural lobby that stands against any sort of industrial development and which attached no importance to these important symbols of our past.”

But while Mr Gurioli advocates the safeguarding of such monuments, he stresses they should not become mere museum pieces but rather remain active in today’s world. They need to continue to be operational since, as he explains, “a port is essentially for those who use it, and not just for those who want to look at it”.

“It is very easy to tear down these structures and build a hotel or a park, but people rarely consider how they could be converted so the testimony remains.

“We have been assigned a hereditary patrimony and as in all heritage we have a duty to protect it for our children. Of course not all symbols of maritime industry are beautiful and need to be saved, but what is important should be left for posterity.”

Today’s public event will begin at 9.15am at the Corinthia Palace Hotel in Attard and entrance is free of charge for all those interested in participating.