Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/958047
maltatoday SUNDAY 25 MARCH 2018 Interview 15 There is a lot of construction happening in Malta today: but are we building anything that is comparable to the architectural jewels of yesteryear? Not just in aesthetic terms... but also in terms of their impact on the quality of life in surrounding areas? Architect EDWARD SAID maintains that Maltese architecture may have some catching up to do with the sheer pace of construction den growth in population, fuelled by economic booms, and Val- letta was in huge demand. At the turn of the century, Valletta had a resident population of 24,000. Today, it has barely 8,000.... de- spite the whole Valletta renewal brouhaha. At the time, many old palaces were either demolished, or severely altered, to be turned into apartment blocks. From a herit- age preservation point of view, it would naturally be considered scandalous today. I imagine that if I myself was alive back then, I would have had fits... I take it that concern with environmental/aesthetic impact was less vocal back then... Less than today, yes; but those concerns were still taken into consideration. When all this was happening, places like Sliema and Hamrun – the suburbs – came into being. And as the Knights had done before them with Flori- ana, the planners went for some- thing that offered a slightly better quality of life: wider streets, lower buildings heights, open spaces, etc. Of course there was also this very British notion of hav- ing 'seaside residences'... and the advantage offered by topography in places like Sliema, is that you have a gentle slope going down to sea-level. The contours allowed for the possibility of stepped rows of houses. Sliema grew that way; then St Julian's, Gzira... and the demand for residences in these new areas started growing. First because Sliema was close to Val- letta, later because it became a commercial hub in its own right. And it has remained popular ever since. But when it comes to recent construction, it has to be seen as part of a process. For example, in the 1920s and 30s, a number of apartment blocks went up on Tower Road, facing St Julian's... Balluta Buildings are from that era, and they're right on the seafront, too... Precisely: late 1920s. But it was also a time when 'having an apart- ment' also implied certain condi- tions. The idea was, if you're go- ing to share your living space with other people, you had to have de- cent common areas... there were no lifts, so the top floor was the cheapest... everyone had a wash- room... sanitary law was taken very seriously... and above all, everything was done with gusto. Balluta Buildings is a case in point. But what happened later, in the post-war boom... and, dare I say it, with Independence: when sud- denly, 'votes' became the talk of a town... an imbalance crept into the picture. Perhaps the planning authorities or boards of the time had less administrative clout to impose restrictions. And today, all that seems to have gone... That is also highly ironic, when you consider that there was no central regulatory body like the Planning Authority back then. It seems that we were better at planning towns when there was less in the way of a planning infrastructure... wouldn't you agree? Well, there was planning infra- structure at the time, too: even the way, for instance, an economic boom was so to speak 'managed'. The post-war period is a good example of this. WW2 brought with it an opportunity to do away with areas like the Manderag- gio in Valletta. Today, we look at those buildings – especially now that limestone has become highly endangered in our architecture – as being Maltese: they might be inspired by British post-war social housing, but they have an unmistakable Maltese hallmark about them. They also have con- sideration for the immediate sur- roundings... probably as a reaction to what was there before. At the same time, places like Santa Lucija and San Gwann were being built; then, later, lots of different hous- ing estates in various parts of the island. Suddenly you had a lot of different typologies of dwelling on offer: terraced houses, con- dominia, with lots of green areas in between. I've spoken to some of the architects involved in some of those projects. Whilst they are proud to have contributed sub- stantially to the Maltese urban fabric, their attitude is: 'It stands to reason that, if you're going to build an apartment block... there should be nothing too close to it. There should be open areas. Ga- rages should be kept low, etc.' One architect in particular told me he drew a lot of inspiration from Pembroke: a British military town. And in the 1960s in the particular, there was a trend to plant trees, and thickets of greenery, in urban areas... The tendency today, on the other hand, seems to be to uproot trees wherever possible, and build up every available square inch. All the considerations you mention seem to have fallen by the wayside. What happened in the meantime? And... perhaps more urgently... what can be done to return to a better planning regime? Part of what happened was that Malta, left to our own devices, translated into a situation where, to retain power, you have to ap- pease people. In practice, it ulti- mately meant that people could end up doing just about whatever they wanted within their own little 'kingdoms', as it were. Regarding what can be done... I would say we need to look at this from a national level. The first thing to do – with all the experts on board, naturally, is to take stock of the crisis. To de- fine this crisis, and prioritise strat- egies to tackle it. One aspect of it concerns identifying which areas need to be preserved, and whether action can be taken in time... Fair enough, but there is another dimension to the issue. Preservation of historically or culturally significant buildings is naturally important; but isn't it also important to build new buildings that might one day be considered significant enough to also preserve in their turn? This consideration seemed to come to us naturally in years gone by. Why is it now relegated to an afterthought? To be fair, there are new projects which may well one day be worth preserving. Some modern build- ings are stunning, at least in my view. I wouldn't want to general- ise too much. But I see your point, and I would say the overarching problem is a question of urban design. Ultimately, it is the Plan- ning Authority that has to impose planning policies. The reality is that the political will is to make more real estate available, in the smallest places possible. There has to be someone, somewhere, to lay down the parameters. That is where we've moved away from the previous approach to urban planning, which involved a sense of harmony. limping behind construction'