One World

Mepa Schedules Villa Roseville, Attard
Roseville is an early 20th century house built as a summer residence by the proprietor Dr W. Briffa. The house was built in two phases; the ground floor was built in 1912 by architect Alessandro Manara and the first floor was added in 1921 by architect Emanuele Borg in the same architectural grammar of the ground floor.

The art nouveau style of this house is locally a unique example and is also one of the finest and earliest examples. This house is complete and authentic in all its elements such as the architectural fabric, the decorations, including its fixtures and fittings.

The type of art nouveau motifs of this building indicate a French or North Italian stylistic influence. Apart from the stylised organic motifs on the façade, this is the only building in Malta where polycromy was used on the façade, such that the recessed panels are painted red, while the motifs were picked out in other colours, thus accentuating the relief and creating contrast.

This property is important because of the following:
• the aesthetic qualities of the architectural features and style,

• it is unique in design and an authentic representation of the period,

• it is still in a very good state of preservation,

• it is a point of reference in the urban texture and contributes greatly to the townscape,

• historically it is the only building in the Maltese islands in this architectural grammar,

• it represents the influx of foreign artistic influence successfully adapted to integrate the local vernacular in the early 19th century,

• it is also important within a context as it forms part of a series of villas and traditional period town houses in the old urban fabric of Attard.