Joe Friggieri

Twenty-five years have passed since Renzo Piano submitted his original designs for the complete restructuring of the entrance to Valletta. Swayed by the widespread, hostile reaction against the designs, the government of the day withdrew its support and the project was abandoned. 

It was only thanks to Renzo Piano's inexhaustible reserve of patience and good will that Valletta was given a second chance.  The results are there for all to see: a beautifully integrated project that draws its inspiration from the majestic walls surrounding the city, replaces the horrendous gate with an elegant structure, preserves the symbolic value of the ruins of the old opera house, and fills the empty space of what was once Freedom Square with an impressive feat of contemporary architecture that admirably combines form and function, bringing out the unique qualities of the local stone.

This is indeed a magnificent creation, a landmark in our architectural history. An honest assessment of our cultural heritage shows that there are huge gaps in the way our urban environment has developed.  Hardly anything worthy of note was built to span the gulf that separates pre-history from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Nothing survives of the Arab Medina except its street plan; and the buildings of any importance constructed since the forced departure of the Knights over two centuries ago are few and far between. 

Thanks to Renzo Piano, Malta now has the kind of architectural creation that will feature in top journals all over the world and for which the island will be remembered.

Although what has been achieved so far is nothing short of miraculous, the project is not finished yet. In Renzo Piano's plans, the garden in the ditch underneath the bridge is an integral part of the project, not just an adjunct to the main idea, or something added on to the rest of the plan as a kind of afterthought. 

For this reason, it is just plain wrong to think of Piano's contract as coming to an end once the new parliament building has been completed. It would be even worse if one were to build a car park instead of the proposed garden, as the ongoing work in the ditch seems to suggest that this is going to happen.

Here again, history has a lot to teach us. Just as it was the Knights who left us the most beautiful buildings, it was also they who gave us San Anton, Argotti, Sa Maison, the Mall, Buskett and Ġnien is-Sultan at the Lower Barrakka. Had it not been for the Knights, Malta would have had practically no public gardens to speak of, give or take a few green spaces developed during British rule. 

While traditional Maltese houses more often than not had a garden or courtyard, the modern trend is to cover every square metre of available land with tiles or cement. Trees are considered an inconvenience, occupying precious space which could so easily be turned into drive-ins, patios or barbecue shrines. 

The hundreds of apartment blocks built over the last 20 or 30 years all have a basement, a semi-basement, a garage, a washroom or penthouse, but no sign of vegetation, except for a few token clumps strategically placed on the top floor of the building and euphemistically referred to as a roof garden. 

The idea that a car park rather than a garden is what people need pushes a commonly held private prejudice into the public sphere. While gardens seem to matter so much to people living in big cities in other parts of the world, they seem to matter much less here. This is indeed strange, given the size of the island and the kind of urban jungle that goes on expanding around us at such a fast rate.

One thing we know for certain is that due to the hundreds of new and second-hand cars being imported every year, levels of carbon monoxide in the air are worryingly high. So what do we do? Instead of encouraging people to use public transport, we make it easier for them to drive into Valletta by providing more parking spaces for private cars. 

Renzo Piano has offered to supervise the completion of his project (including clearing up the area around the Tritons fountain) free of charge. Let's not throw away this wonderful opportunity to show that Valletta really deserved to be declared European City of Culture for 2018.

 

Joe Friggieri is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Malta