Valletta, the city built by the Knights of St John or, as famously known, “a city built by gentlemen for gentlemen”, is a supreme example of military architecture. Valletta was built according to a defensive master plan with all the basic adjuncts of defence – outerworks and countermines, glacis, powder magazines, drawbridges, sally ports etc.
... let’s create easy pedestrian access... utilising the restored sally ports- Marielouise Musumeci
The original design brief was a fortified town providing for state-of-the-art defences against invasion. The outcome from Laparelli’s drawing board was a set of highly artistic plans containing a proposal that met the brief. Five centuries later, our priorities are naturally different, involving a change in challenges, demands, needs, lifestyle and, yes, the introduction of the motor car, one of men’s creations of the 18th century. The stark reality is that the use of such vehicles has gained a top priority in our lifestyle and is considered a necessity rather than a commodity.
Let’s rewind to my introduction. The knights wanted to build a defensive city and they did so with great zeal and accomplishment. Five centuries down the line, a change in brief, hence a “rehabilitation” of the city to meet today’s needs is essential. Bulldozing down the city is not an option, so let’s be proactive, let’s regenerate and adapt the use of Valletta to accommodate today’s needs.
In December 1988, Renzo Piano was engaged by the Valletta Rehabilitation Committee to come up with preliminary guidelines for the rehabilitation of Valletta’s historic centre. The document delves into various issues but the most interesting plan is the proposed eight vertical connection points which lead from a peripheral ring road right into the hub of the city.
Mr Piano went one step further and proposed peripheral parking areas that would cater for a total capacity of 4,090 cars, most of these parking spaces being catered for in the ditch and in the currently privately-owned underground parking area located at the entrance of Valletta. One would question whether this is, after all, a solution to our problems. Peripheral parking is typically not considered as good enough when we, as a nation, are accustomed to park right in front of our destination point with the minimum effort possible. But is it right for a city like Valletta?
Let’s for a moment, look at our neighbouring country Italy and see how the Italians deal with their numerous fortified mediaeval towns. Umbria is one of Italy’s most-loved regions, well known for its wine, truffles and perched picturesque mediaeval towns but there is more than meets the eye, literally. Umbria is enriched with underground tunnels which, ingeniously, have been adapted to meet today’s needs of pedestrian access into the city centre.
Take Perugia, for an example. I have personally experienced this myself on a recent trip. Driving into the city centre was a nightmare, to say the least, but little did I know that there was a much more comfortable, easy entrance into the city and that was by parking the car in one of the peripheral underground parking lots and entering the city through the tunnels that once made up the Rocca Paolina. Pedestrians entering the city can walk through the preserved mediaeval streets which remain under what is left of the 16th century fortress along the route that connects a series of modern escalators leading from the underground parking of Piazza Partigiani, through the Rocca Paolina, under the portico of Palazzo del Governo (built in 1870, now seat of the provincial government) and into Piazza Italia.
The underground city is an extraordinary sight, with vaulted brick ceilings that have been constructed over mediaeval streets, houses and churches. This is all that remains of the Rocca Paolina, the papal fortress built to subdue the city by the Farnese Pope Paolo III in 1540. He decided that instead of knocking down everything, he would use buildings from the old mediaeval quarter as foundations for the new fortress, so today visitors can still walk along these streets.
Other examples of similar concepts are rife, such as Orvieto, Todi and Napoli Sotterranea, just to mention a few. What do these mediaeval cities have in common to our capital? The answer is they all have an underground network of tunnels that have ingeniously been rehabilitated to meet today’s needs. Rather than being left derelict and closed off, this part of their history has been utilised to serve as either a horizontal/vertical connection into the city and/or to serve as a historical attraction and start off point to the visiting tourist, as well as serve the day-to-day needs of the locals.
A comparison can be drawn to our capital. Sally ports, concealed tunnels that lead up from the ditch into a fortress, are part of the defence structures that make up the military architecture of Valletta. A few have been identified along the ditch area of Valletta but, unfortunately, till a few months ago, these were either underutilised or inhabited by squatters. The scene has now changed and the Ministry of Resources and Rural Affairs has, over the past year, invited the public to experience part of the fortifications first-hand by opening up these areas throughout whole weekends and providing visuals and information on their history, military use and ongoing restoration.
Once restored, the next automatic step would be the rehabilitation of these empty spaces and, in the face of such a parking crisis, my personal view is clear: let’s create parking spaces in Valletta’s periphery, perhaps even explore the possibility of underground parking in the ditch and, then, like our Italian neighbours have been doing successfully for years, let’s create easy pedestrian access with the implementation of state-of-the-art mechanised moving walkways into the city hub utilising the restored sally ports.
The latter will also serve as a great method of entering the city by appreciating the past and, with a pinch of 21st-century creativity, utilising the space and rough hewn-out rock face to project the uniqueness and elegance of our capital.
The author, an architect by profession, is chairman of the Rehabilitation Project Committees within the Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs.