Fort St Angelo (1)
Many have expressed their concern about the fate of Fort St Angelo. Fort St Angelo is the heart and pivot of the Grand Harbour, historically the key to Malta and a unique spectacle. St Angelo is a historical monument - it should remain as such. No...
Many have expressed their concern about the fate of Fort St Angelo. Fort St Angelo is the heart and pivot of the Grand Harbour, historically the key to Malta and a unique spectacle. St Angelo is a historical monument - it should remain as such. No development plan is acceptable which is incompatible with its history and symbolic significance.
Fort St Angelo is a truly national heritage and under no circumstances should it be in any way privatised or cordoned off or cannibalised by commercial interests. Still less should it be cheapened by any glitzy use of its magnificent spaces and belvederes. Heritage is "commonwealth", the collective narrative, memory, symbols of a people; of such "wealth" no people can be divested honourably. It would be an act of transgression against a people's deepest and inalienable ethos.
Heritage Malta has repeatedly expressed its concern at the plight of the forts and fortifications. They constitute a heritage which deserves an overall management and development plan consistent with, and based on, sound historical, scientific and academic criteria provided by historians, art experts, conservators, curators, conservation architects and experienced managers of cultural heritage.
Heritage Malta is, in fact, consolidating such an interdisciplinary task force to meet the requirements of its remit. Piecemeal and fortuitous interventions may vulgarise or even savage the usually fragile state of sites of cultural heritage.
The rehabilitation of Fort St Angelo is urgent and merits immediate attention but it needs to be inspired by a clear vision and integrated within a global strategy for cultural heritage, especially regarding the forts and fortifications, to assure authenticity, the highest standards of conservation and "public ownership".
The Grand Harbour, dominated so dramatically by Fort St Angelo, is the greatest spectacle in our islands; we absolutely cannot afford to go wrong with our vision. In the development of cultural sites, multiplicity of stake-holders is an advantage but multiplicity of visions or interests spells disaster.