Christmas reopening for Lascaris War Rooms after four-year closure

Restoration works at the Lascaris War Rooms in Valletta are moving at a fast pace for a partial reopening in time for Christmas after a four-year closure.

Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna chairman Mario Farrugia said some of the rooms will be open towards the end of the year as will a theatre where visitors will be able to watch an audiovisual presentation of the history of the war rooms.

"We were planning to open earlier but since we wanted to restore them to their original state, we could not find enough information locally and had to research it abroad," he said.

The rooms were extensively modified over the years but FWA had insisted they be presented as they were in 1943, when they were built and used as an operations headquarters for the invasion of Sicily.

They stopped receiving visitors in 2005, when the company they were leased to in 1992 decided it was no longer profitable to continue running them.

Back then the displays represented military operations of 1942, which were ironically never carried out there.

However, earlier this year, the government handed the war rooms over to FWA, which wholeheartedly committed itself to restoring them and opening them to the public again.

All exhibits were put aside and works quickly got under way to bring the rooms back to their original state, including the vaulted ceilings and office and control room layout.

Meanwhile, the equipment found inside is being restored and made fully functional, including an air-conditioning system which cooled or heated the war rooms while filtering the air drawn in for any poisonous gases.

The mannequins which were on display will be replaced by monitors, which will feature an explanation of the functions carried out by the staff. Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt, who visited the war rooms with Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi, praised the works and hailed the FWA for always being very professional in its approach.

He said the project complemented renowned architect Renzo Piano's designs for the capital city, which included the opening of an archway between the surrounding two ditches, making the war rooms more accessible.

Since they could be reached from either end, Dr Gatt said visitors could easily find their way there by using one of three lifts being built leading up from the ditch, one of which was still pending approval by the planning authority.

Meanwhile, Dr Azzopardi said the land on which the war rooms were dug into was the largest to be handed over by the government to a non-governmental organisation.

The FWA had always wisely made good use of the property it was given, restoring it and opening it to be enjoyed by all.