On 1 February 2013 a seminar was organised by the Farsons Foundation in collaboration with the Department of Built Heritage, Faculty for the Built Environment, University of Malta.

The timing was significant: the country was in the throes of the election campaign. So maybe the importance of what was said did not affect people who were not there.

The conference was held in the boardroom of the iconic Farsons Building at Mriehel just a few months after Farsons inaugurated the fourth brewhouse in its history and as the company began sifting through ideas of what is to become of the white concrete Farsons building.

The latest idea making the rounds seems to be to turn the building into a business centre. Only recently we have come to know that Farsons will not use the FAR rule as others around it at Mriehel are doing and creating tall buildings.

The booklet spans two administrations. It carries a speech made by Dr Mario de Marco, at that time Minister for the Environment but it also includes a statement by Dr Jose Herrera, at that time Parliamentary Secretary and now Minister for the Environment.

Here and there, throughout the book, we get mention of a number of industrial buildings and plants that could be restored and perhaps given a new use, such as the 1907 Blackley's Bakery in Pieta, once described as a model bakery and now being developed into residential units with the addition of more floors.

Another example is the 100-ton Armstrong cannon at Fort Rinella, now the centrepiece of the Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna exhibition there.

The old Royal Naval Bakery has been imaginatively turned into the Malta Maritime Museum. And of course the Malta Aviation Museum is housed in one of RAF's Ta' Qali airbase.

Other industrial buildings have not been so fortunate: mention is made of the Dockyard Boiler Shop, the engines and steam plant at Kordin, the water pumping stations, the beautifully-preserved 1907 machine shop at the Conservatorio Vincenzo Bugeja and the Kordin Power Station.

In these days, there is much talk about the dismantlement of the Marsa Power Station. Some of the speakers at the Farsons seminar later spoke at a seminar held in the now dismantled power station and argued for the preservation of at least part of the plant. It would seem this plea has been disregarded and there are many reports how this site will be razed and support gleaming offices.

Certainly the site is idyllic: from the blackened windows of the power station we could look out across the entire Grand Harbour to the entrance between the breakwaters.

Timothy Ambrose, an international expert on the subject spoke about the preservation of industrial heritage in the UK and the many different formats this takes - from the Iron Bridge in Shropshire, UK, to Riverside Museum in Glasgow (at that time still being built), to cases of re-use such as a crane base in Amsterdam, which became an office block to former warehouses in Liverpool and, I add, Hamburg and London Docklands, which became high-quality residences.

JoAnn Cassar and Reuben Grima (ed)

Approaches to industrial heritage: What works?

Farsons Foundation and the University of Malta

2013                

74pp