Visitor centre at Ħaġar Qim

Heritage Malta would like to clarify some matters with regard to the letter Modern Visitor Centre at Ħaġar Qim Temples Will Create An Eyesore from Karmenu Pace (June 13).

The precise colour of the painted finish of the visitor centre will be chosen, in close consultation with Mepa, after trial patches are tested on the building, in order to ensure that the chosen colour will blend in successfully with the landscape.

The visitor centre is being built in an unused part of the existing car park, in order to avoid a new physical impact on the landscape. No rock-cutting is permitted on this site, and the building could not therefore be sunk underground, it has been integrated into the levels of the existing rock and its height has been carefully determined in order to ensure that it will not rise above the apparent horizon as viewed by a person standing in front of the Ħaġar Qim Temples, in order not to have any impact on any possible astronomical alignments.

Mr Pace enquired if it is possible for the building to be clad in Maltese stone. Part of the building will indeed be clad in dry-stone walling, precisely as he is suggesting.

However, it should also be noted that the architect's designs, which were chosen in 2004 during the international competition organised in collaboration with the International Union of Architects, are deliberately intended to show that this building is a 21st insertion in the landscape, which will have no pretence of imitating the Neolithic monuments.