Announced just the day before, a meeting organised by Valletta Rehabilitation Committee saw the participation of a rather a large crowd of people who filled the St James Cavalier cinema on Friday afternoon to listen to Renzo Piano.
First, it was shown a CD of a conference given by Mr Piano himself in Rome. Although the conference was titled “What is Architecture”, Mr Piano ended up speaking about his many world-famous creations.
The character of the man came through as well: born into a construction family, he became an architect in the heady days of the 1960s. His work at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, just after the events of 1968, brought him worldwide fame as a rebel in a rebel generation.
Later on, he mellowed and, through his many creations, became engrossed with buildings that were light rather than heavy.
How will this person, we all asked ourselves, come up with a City Gate in a system of bastions that is anything but light? The City Gate project will also be very different from all he has been doing, as it will be the first time he will be working on the entry point and traffic flow nexus of a capital city.
The screening of the CD was followed by a discussion.
Richard England emphasised Mr Piano’s obsession with lightness. He ended by stating: “I am delighted Mr Piano will be doing the City Gate project. I am sure we will have a great work of art that looks to the future but will also be linked to the past.”
Architect Conrad Thake said Mr Piano is well suited to Valletta. Valletta was created as an instant city, much like St Petersburg or Brasilia. Cities that remain anchored to the past stagnate and die. Valletta is the city of the Knights, but it is also the city of the British. We cannot say that Valletta shows the contribution of the Maltese because the post-war contribution of the Maltese is very mediocre – the Law Courts, the Excelsior. Hardly any building of note has been created over the past decades. The last architect of fame was William Scamp and, of course, Barry. The knights built Valletta in just seven years while we have spent 65 years discussing and doing nothing.
What will be done must not be aggressive: after all, the Piano of today is not the Piano of the Pompidou Centre.
The Malta of today needs an iconic building, just like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, or the Sydney Opera House.
Valletta is the city of synergy, where the past meets the future across the great axis from City Gate to St Elmo. We need a grand gesture and there is no one like Piano to produce it.
The debate in the country has shifted from the discussion about aesthetics of 20 years ago to the discussion about the use of the building on the Opera House site – which shows that public opinion has matured.
But we must let Piano alone: what will be done must not be the work of a committee, or we will get 400,000 “experts” telling Piano what to do and creating another hotchpotch.
Professor Peter Serracino Inglott went back in time to tell about his involvement with Piano.
During the 1981-1987 Labour administration, Foreign Minister Alex Sceberras Trigona had asked UNESCO for help to set up a toy museum in Sliema. The UNESCO official in charge of such projects at that time was Professor Salvino Busuttil, who had pointed out the availability of Renzo Piano who at that time was doing work at Otranto, a baroque city similar to Valletta.
But Professor Busuttil told then Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici that perhaps Piano could be used for something better than a toy museum. Dr Mifsud Bonnici agreed with the proposal and Mr Piano came to Malta.
Before he came, he insisted that the first thing he wanted to see was the megalithic temples. He was to be taken around by Fr Mario Zerafa, then director of museums but Fr Zerafa was sick and he asked Fr Peter to stand in for him.
Fr Peter accepted, but he was inwardly quite apprehensive as some years before he had written an article in Arte Cristiana, which was highly critical of the Pompidou Centre as done by Piano.
When he was introduced to Mr Piano at the airport, Mr Piano immediately recognized him as the author of the article and he (Piano) agreed with his criticism. When in later times he (Fr Peter) had followed Mr Piano’s plan for the Valletta City Gate, he was struck by its minimalism, as he did not create another gate but rather created an opening to symbolize the city opening up to the world.
As those who met Mr Piano last weekend reported, Mr Piano is now focusing not just on the building but on the meeting point of people, the polis, human conviviality, a holistic view of the city.
Following these presentations, the panel came in for a veritable barrage of invective and vituperative statements, such as that the government had long decided to build a Parliament, that the government does not understand or appreciate culture, that it is pig-headed and arrogant.
It was almost in vain that Prof. Serracino Inglott pointed out that the Prime Minister’s latest statement on the matter was that he was very flexible and that nothing is cast in stone.
Other speakers questioned why Mr Piano had been chosen and not a Maltese architect, and even here Fr Serracino Inglott had the strong weight of past history to present.
For he was the chairman of the committee that 17 years ago invited Maltese architects to come up with suggestions for the Opera House. But all went beyond the brief and the result was just a small theatre. The nearest to the brief was the proposal submitted by Professor England.
It was because of this that the decision was taken to renovate St James Cavalier and that this was to be done by Prof. England to house some of the activities that were being proposed for the Opera House site. Now that St James Cavalier has been restored, the next logical step is to do the Opera House site and City Gate.