It is common knowledge that beneath Valletta lies an urban enigma. The city itself is a feat of engineering which, at its peak, was capable of accommodating over twenty thousand inhabitants. Since its initial construction in 1566 - approaching almost half a millennium ago, an area of less than a square kilometre has, time and time again, managed to adapt to the needs of the times. In order to achieve this an unseen network spreads across the city, beneath the slabbed streets and ageing dwellings, still humbly carrying out the duties for which it was originally designed.
This city is the place I now call home and despite it undergoing another revival, there is a grossly underestimated aspect of this space that is sadly still going unnoticed. Underneath the capital rests a labyrinthine weave of functional structures hewn and constructed over centuries for a myriad of purposes. However, a recently formed organisation intends to remedy this lacuna in people's knowledge of the underlying fabric beneath the city. Valletta Underground wants to bring to light the knowledge and information that has so far remained in almost complete darkness.
To find out more about what lies beneath, I met up with one of the founding members of Valletta Underground - a person who might arguably be considered the foremost expert on the subject. Over the years, architect Edward Said has gained the reputation as the go-to-guy on information about the city's dark underbelly. As we sat down at my dinner table with a drink, I couldn't help cutting straight to the chase with the one question that had been bubbling inside me ever since the idea of writing this article first popped into my head. "It seems that everyone has their own idea of what lies beneath the city - it is a topic seeped in urban legend. How much of it is myth and how much of it is real?"»
«Edward immediately addresses the elephant in the room by bringing up the biggest claim of all which is that underneath Valletta lies a subterranean city. He assures me that this is not the case and that some accounts of escape passages and underwater tunnels are also somewhat exaggerated. However, what there is down there might be said to be equally fascinating - in fact you might even call it another reality.
The most amazing thing one learns when exploring the space beneath the city is the amount of forethought, ingenuity and practicality employed by the engineers, architects and planners during the city's construction. These people really thought ahead and, as an architect, is it abundantly clear that Edward appreciates the forethought that went in to the designing of the city. This is especially relevant when one considers the surveying tools and equipment available at the time, not to mention the fact that the population of Malta was less than thirty thousand when the construction of Valletta began.
Valletta was the response to the Great Siege, a preventive measure aimed at ensuring a higher likelihood of victory, should the country be attacked again. In this respect, it has to be kept in mind that although the planners of the time were in a hurry to build the city, they did not skimp when it came to implementing measures to ensure its sustainability: the structures beneath the capital are testament to this. The site for Valletta offered particular challenges and opportunities, from both the topographical and geological points of view. The planned entrance to the city, for example, was already the highest part - a definite plus from the defensive point of view - as well as consisting of good quality stone. This afforded the opportunity of using the stone excavated from the dry moat at City Gate to increase the height of the bastion walls as well as possibly building St John and St James Cavalier on either side of the gate with the same stone. It is even rumoured that the first city gate was, in fact, a tunnel hewn through solid rock.
This same extremely pragmatic thinking is pervasive throughout all the city's design. One reason why niches were built at the corner of housing blocks, is that niches generally hold lamps or candles and could therefore illuminate all four roads at which they intersect. Not only were the people at the time rational thinkers, they also implemented such measures while retaining a sense of the aesthetic. »
«There were about 12 regulations at the time of Valletta's construction by which anyone wishing to live within the city had to abide, and about four of these concerned underground Valletta. The stone used to for building inside Valletta had to be sourced from within the city. This was partially due to practical and logistical considerations since it did away with the need to transport stone to the site. In fact, quite a few houses have quarries beneath them: once the stone needed for building had been excavated, these holes were then either simply vaulted over, or turned into cellars, water cisterns or crypts and the houses built over them. Valletta's uneven contours may also be said to have contributed to the unique nature of the city's underground. Foundations had to be level in order for buildings to be erected on them and this was achieved either by digging until an appropriate gradient was reached or - perhaps more commonly - by constructing wedge-shaped foundations on which the buildings were then constructed. These spaces were hollow, turned to tenements.
The sanitation and infrastructure regulations employed at the time were truly state-of-the-art. Each house had to be connected to a main drain and the design of a system using gravity for effluent was impressive - as was the system for the supply of water. These tunnels were about three or four feet wide, obviously wide enough for a person to pass through since they were excavated by hand and people had to be able to pass through them in order to get the job done. The exit points for this drainage system was straight out of the bastion walls. There are, in fact, some pretty repugnant descriptions from the time of the British that refer to sections of the bastions being covered in slurry.
As a result, one of the first major projects carried out by the British was an overhaul of the Valletta's drainage systems - adding further tunnels to the network beneath the city to catch any run-off as well as constructing intricate high chimneys to allow for the escape of noxious gasses. Edward points at one of them just outside my balcony calling it a 'beaut'. When World War II necessitated the creation of air raid shelters, the easiest option was to map out the location of existing subterranean structures and simply connect them - thus adding another function to these spaces, not to mention the building of additional shelters. It is these numerous layers of superimposed functions within such a confined space that makes what is down there truly amazing.
When asked what he considers the most impressive thing he has seen so far, Edward replies that it has to be the massive reservoir beneath Great Siege Square. Since his interest in this area first started, he has been consulted on all sorts of things - from sewage problems to National Geographic wanting to know more on the subject. Edward hopes that Valletta Underground can start serving as the primary contact point on the subject, dispelling the myths through documented research, facts and activities where people see such things for themselves.
The organisation hopes that, one day, it will be able to have a site open to the public that demonstrates all the unique features described above. Until then, anyone interested can visit Underground Valletta's Facebook page to find out more about forthcoming events. The organisation can be contacted on [email protected]