The gate and the gap

When in the year 2000 I wrote Tkun Darb'Oħra Mikelanġ, a play about the Renzo Piano affair, there was nothing that could even remotely lead me to believe that after eight years the play's title would lose its ironic connotations and suggest a real possibility.

Thanks to the government's change of heart and Renzo Piano's inexhaustible reserve of patience and goodwill, Valletta is being given a second chance. Being the kind of affable person he is, and brushing aside the insults that had been heaped upon his head when the original designs were submitted 20 years ago, Renzo Piano has agreed to go back to the drawing-board and come up with new ideas.

As we all know, there are huge gaps in our architectural history. Hardly anything worthy of note was built in the gulf that separates prehistory from the baroque period. Nothing survives of the Arab Medina except its street plan; and the buildings of any importance constructed since the forced departure of the Knights over 200 years ago are few and far between.

Still, despite our inability to emulate our predecessors by enhancing the environment with structures that are both functional and aesthetically satisfying, there seems to have been a change for the better as far as the aesthetic judgment of, at least, the Chamber of Architects is concerned. The very mention of the name of Renzo Piano has not raised the kind of hostility among its members this time round that it did 20 years ago. And there have been declarations of support by a number of other organisations for the government's decision to re-commission Renzo Piano for the job.

The same cannot be said, however, of the government's plans for the site of the former Royal Opera House. The suggestion that Parliament should be built there has been widely criticised by artists, art historians and operators in the fields of culture and tourism and the general feeling is that it would involve a huge waste of resources on a site that ought to serve a better purpose.

When this idea was first mooted some years ago, the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts, of which I was chairman, and whose advice the government is legally bound to seek, had stated quite categorically that the site is not suitable for Parliament and that its location there would contribute to the death rather than the revival of the image and life of Valletta as a capital city.

"It is also a known fact," the council said, "that Malta still lacks a centre for the self-expression of our cultural identity as well as for the serious development of cultural tourism. The Manoel Theatre is too small to house large-scale productions that would be economically viable; and the Mediterranean Conference Centre auditorium - a roofed-over courtyard - was never designed and cannot ever be well-adapted for that purpose."

Valletta deserves the best. The government is still in a position to revise its plans and respect the natural vocation of the old opera site by providing for its development as an adequate centre for the performing arts.

Prof. Friggieri is head of the Philosophy Department at the University, a poet, a playwright and a theatre director.