I did a bit of spontaneous small-scale market research with my English contacts to find out how people who have been to Malta lately describe it, or how they would describe it from hearsay.
The most common answer, admittedly from the e-mail contact list of my middle class and reasonably well-educated sample came back like this, “Oh that place with all the ugly buildings.”
Somehow this hurt, even though I’ve been writing about the almost universally minimal architectural and visual value of most of the buildings that have been built in the last 20 years. And then I took an imaginary trip along the routes a tourist takes, from the airport to Bugibba or Sliema, from Bugibba or Sliema to Valletta or even Mdina. Maybe a trip down to Marsaxlokk in the south or any of our small beaches in the north. Most of these drives, for most of the route anyway, the main tourist attractions so to speak, do not leave a delightful impression.
Many of our own middle classes have given up on this visual nightmare altogether. They just look out to our beautiful sea, get themselves boats or friends with boats and spend the longer and longer summer months seeing Malta differently, from the sea or just looking out to sea completely. The rest of the population though have to live with this visual ugliness on a daily basis, have to accept this ugliness as mainstream as so many of our badly dressed men and women. Though you do see some amazingly nicely turned out young people in certain spots these days, so hopefully these will grow up to be Malta’s well dressed men and women of the future.
Although Malta has pockets of beauty and world heritage sites within a very short distance of each other, it is in the main only ugly because of its more modern buildings. And while it is good to hear of seminars relating to our urban environment, I wonder what many of Malta’s architects make of this uglification.
Why has it come about? What was wrong with so many of the architects that graduated from our university who have been working and thriving in the last 20 years? Don’t those who lecture students on design at our university’s faculty of architecture worry about what is being produced? And how can it be improved? Are there enough artistic students studying architecture? How many artistic types obtain top grades in subjects like Maths or Physics?
Buildings have to be safe but they have to look good too. Does our architecture course allow for the two types of talent that are needed, those that are hotter visually and those that are hotter numerically? Very few can obtain A grades in both areas so how can we beef up the artistic input, how can we attract more artistic types to study architecture too?
How in other words can we stop the almost unmitigated disaster that is modern Malta’s urban landscape?
Why doesn’t our planning system aid the way Malta looks? And of course, most important of all, can anything be done to improve what we have, as well as ensure that the construction of more and more ugly buildings stops, forthwith? There are many talented architects in Malta who know what the problem is. Will they be given the tools, the power and the resources to slow down this uglification?
It is of course to get back to the tourism theme, which is one of our life bloods, and it is good, very good that tourists are back. Thanks to slightly better marketing of Malta and to low cost airlines and the boom in cruise liner business it has been a better year. But aren’t we worried that so many leave with a less than brilliant impression?
It’s really not about our manners and our culture, those values that that expensive Danish consultant gave us, or not only. It really is about how Malta looks, the starting point of how you experience your holiday. And who would recommend a holiday to someone where you thought the place was ugly, however friendly the people, however amazing our World Heritage sites are?
Of course there are other spots in the world that manage to attract huge numbers of tourists even though there is quite a lot of untidiness, and as many ugly modern buildings as we produce .The English for example flock to Egypt in their droves not least because Egypt and its marketing evokes an experience that our marketing campaigns never come close to. How many English people would mention the Hypogeum, or our Caravaggios or our temples, or our lines of amazing fortifications, or The Three Cities, or Valletta and Mdina as the wonders they are?
People go on holiday to a place because their appetite has been whetted. Why do we show the front of a cathedral instead of the interior of a farmhouse, why doesn’t our advertising smell and taste of Malta? Why don’t we talk about our amazing tomatoes and potatoes, our fabulous bread? The English have become foodies but none of our marketing reflects this at all.
Some publications locally are getting there. There are too many stuffy, boring and formal books about Malta. One I saw lately by Miranda Publications had chapters on things that interest people – our olive oil, our bread. Culture, Maltese and Gozitan culture is not just about buildings and antiquities. It is about the way we live our lives, the way we enjoy our food, our family bonds. These are all strengths we need to market much, much better.
How can we do this though if we have not yet learnt to appreciate ourselves? If all we can do is build buildings that are ugly imitations of much more modern and powerful buildings in cities abroad?
If I see another building like that ugly monster near the Addolorata Cemetery allowed I will give up. Who on earth designed that insensitivity? And who gave it a planning permit? So many of our tourists see it as they leave Malta on their way to the airport. No wonder they describe our home as “that place with all the ugly buildings”.
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