Rescuing 114-122 Strait Street

What was the motivation of the objection which you, wearing some of your many hats, were reported by the media to have submitted to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority in relation to a government application to demolish the interiors of a series of buildings in Strait Street, Valletta, including the most prestigious and history-laden Casa Corogna, in order to build new offices for the Attorney General?

My first reason is that the proposal is hardly consistent with a rightly very positively welcomed government policy and gives the impression that the government’s left hand is undoing what the right hand intended to do.

An innovation in this year’s Budget consisted of measures expressive of recognition that the key to economic success is capacity for innovation. For this reason creative enterprises are being promoted for their yields not only direct but also indirect through fostering a culture of innovation.

Lately, there has been a surfeit of criticism of the government on such grounds as that its vision did not adequately include the social dimension of development, but even this criticism contained implicit recognition of basic success in economic policy. Primarily this success is measurable in terms of employment.

More important than prevention of job losses is the creation of new jobs in areas that provide scope for human fulfilment as well as income.

The professionalisation of artistic and cultural activities is proving to be a significant way in which the exceptional human resources with which our nation is blessed can be made to yield economic returns that are by no means negligible.

A main strategy that the Ministry of Finance has been following, complementary to the sterling work on the development of cultural policy by the ministry responsible for culture, is the promotion of creative clusters.

The idea, for which incentives are being provided by Malta Enterprise, is that in appropriately chosen localities one service will feed on the other. The different enterprises that can form a cluster must be capable of dialogue with (or at least to tolerate) each other.

The choice of location for the first creative cluster to be set up was understandably enough Strait Street. So it is to put it mildly surprising that another branch of the same government should be submitting a proposal that goes diametricallyagainst a project supported by the ministries of finance, resources, tourism and culture.

What is so precious about 114-122 Strait Street?

The architecturally most important building is undoubtedly no. 119. There is a marble plaque above its main entrance dated 1734 which recalls that it was purchased by the Fondazione Manoel de Vilhena, it is most famous as having served as the usual place of lodging for foreign artists who performed at the nearby theatre founded by the same Grandmaster.

Many people still remember that Strait Street, especially the area of it of which Casa Corogna is the heart, was the cradle where some of Malta’s best musicians and artists were nurtured, not only the jazz and band leaders, but also dynasties such as the single family that gave us Maestro Albert Borg, Maestro di Capella of the Cathedral and Maestro Brian Schembri.

As for me personally, out of the six celebrated bars that would be destroyed, I would mostly regret the destruction of the Metro, obviously because of its celebration of what is generally considered to be one of the greatest literary masterpieces of 20th century American Literature, Thomas Pynchon’s novel V.

Evidently, it makes no sense to keep the façade and gut the interior (an ironic term to apply to the heart of the locality famous throughout the world as The Gut.) It would be like preserving the cover of a book, but not its contents. The heritage interest of these buildings is not primarily their outside but the magnificent high internal spaces, as well as the graffiti and friezes on the walls as well as other signs and traces of their previous functions.

My confidence in the good sense of our government is still strong enough for me not to be surprised if, when it is realised what one part of it is asking to be done, an alternative solution will be found for the admittedly needed relocation of the Attorney General’s offices.

I believe it to be possible within the same street and even closer to the law courts in other sumptuous government-owned buildings that are at present vacant and derelict.

In any case, I am even more confident that Mepa will not approve a proposal that runs so directly counter to what is known as envisaged in the Master Plan being drawn up for Valletta.

What better proposals for Strait Street are being hatched?

A Strait Street Foundation is going into operation and all expressions of interest in addtion to the many already received will be welcomed on: info@ftz.org.mt.

Essentially what is being aimed at is to turn this most dilapidated area at the very centre of Valletta into a venue for entertainment (not in Paceville style) at least by the time that Malta has the presidency of the European Union in the year just before Valletta will be Cultural Capital of Europe.

The infrastructure for this great opportunity must be in place well before the year in such a way as to be sustainable afterwards.

The Fondazzjoni Temi Zammit organised a seminar last Friday at Europe House in Valletta in which two of its ongoing projects were discussed.

The first concerned recommendations to be made by a Mediterranean Cultural Network to the European Union with regard to its cultural policy, while the second is about setting up Incubators for Cultural Enterprises.

The intention is that the Maltese Incubator, intended mainly to provide a support structure for artists initiating creative activities especially in terms of their marketing and other commercial aspects, be located in Strait Street at the hub of the projected creative cluster.

Fr. Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Margaret Zammit.