The Chamber of Architects has published what has been described as a “visionary document”, which proposes the setting up of a national centre for the built up environment. This centre would incorporate a design review commission, whose task will focus on quality in architecture, and the design of buildings and public spaces.

The President of the Chamber, architect David Felice, who announced this initiative, declared that “the Kamra tal Periti wanted to come up with a clear statement that quality in architecture is a priority in the national agenda,” adding that “quality in design is an essential tool for the country’s economic and social development”.

Better late than never! During the past several years, and particularly since the end of World War Two, this fair land has been vandalised by speculators with the full participation of the construction industry, and with the benign tolerance – if not the connivance – of MEPA, which is the regulatory authority.

MEPA has turned the Nelson eye on buildings that do not fit the landscape, that do not harmonise with the neighbourhood, and with those who pass by. Increasingly, new tenements have been built with obvious disregard to the human need for light and fresh air. Much less do such tenements give consideration to the imperatives of global warming?

Prime culprits

Many of these tenements have been aptly described as “characterless, sterile, modish, meaningless glass and concrete”.

In the mass, they are the prime culprits responsible for the uglification of the Maltese milieu.

Malta’s predicament is being further aggravated by flagrant over-development. MEPA approved permits for the building of over 37,000 dwellings, between 2002 and 2006, when the property market was groaning under the weight of 40,000-plus empty and unused tenements.

Martin Scicluna, Director General of the Today Public Policy Institute, highlighted only the other day MEPA’s mission statement which, inter alia, commits the Planning Authority ‘to pass on to our children a better country than we inherited’. And he asked:

‘How can we reconcile these fine words with the ugliness which has been permitted by the planning authority in the three-mile seaside stretch from Tigne Point to Spinola Bay, once consisting of elegant and handsome buildings, now replaced almost entirely by faceless, high-rise apartments?’

Indictment

He drove home his point by emphasising that ‘the same remarks could well be repeated in respect of Bugibba, Qawra, St Paul’s Bay and Xemxija. These make a mockery of MEPA’s mission statement which is to beautify, not uglify, this fair land.

This indictment says it all.

Behind all the tasteless and unedifying buildings, there were architects who, no doubt, had to dance to the tune of speculators in the guise of developers. Their depredations were encouraged when the government passed through parliament legislation to authorise the extension of the development zones, in the face of widespread public concern.

Malta’s paramount environmental challenge is to control construction development and the way we use or share our land. And the burden in this regard has to be carried by MEPA and by the government.

But the onus on putting to an end the further uglification of this fair land must be borne by professional architects.

The initiative launched by the Kamra tal-Periti will, hopefully, make amends for the sins of some of their members.

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