Finally, we can breathe again. It seems that the Birkirkara, Santa Venera, and Fleur-de-Lys local councils have ironed out their differences over what to christen the arch they intend to build on a roundabout in the demilitarised zone.

The original version of this piece did, in fact, include a suggestion. Only my editor sent it back, saying that The Sunday Times of Malta had to uphold normal standards of decency. Which is nice.

I wouldn’t normally nitpick about language. In this case, however, I might be pardoned for doing so. That’s because the linguistic fudge reflects its equivalent in stone and mortar.

The new arch will be called L-Ark tal-Akwidott. The reason I can’t give a translation is that ‘ark’ doesn’t mean anything in Maltese. (And please bin the esoteric dictionary entries, it’s usage I’m interested in.) The closest equivalent is ‘bieb’ (lit. ‘doorway’), used for the various arches built by the Knights. Thus I might say that the Żebbuġ kebab place is ‘ħdejn il-bieb ta’ De Rohan’ (‘by the De Rohan arch’), for example. The usage is reasonable in that the arch actually leads into that lovely village.

‘Arkata’ (not ‘ark’) is generally used to mean an internal arch or, occasionally, one of a set of external arches, as in an aqueduct or arcade. The point is that an ‘arkata’ doesn’t stand alone, but rather as a connecting element. For example, there’s a place called Wied l-Arkata in Burmarrad and it takes its name from a stone arch that bridges irrigation channels across a small valley.

Because the new arch doesn’t lead anywhere, it isn’t a bieb. Nor is it an arkata, since it doesn’t serve to connect anything. I can only conclude that ‘ark’ is a coinage that means ‘a hideous object planted on a roundabout to link pointlessness to pointlessness’.

Which brings me to my argument. First, the damn thing is ugly, ugly, ugly. The original arch was agreeable enough, in context. Robbed of that and installed in the middle of a roundabout with pansies (sweet, sirs) and traffic signs all round, it isn’t. It actually looks like some kind of post-modernist joke. Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia in New Orleans is the closest I can think of, and even that is stretched and optimistic.

The reason why I don’t expect a sea of nods is that the arch-in-progress is baroque. To many, that means it must be good. From house façades to festa decorations, band club każini to water-features, baroque (or thereabouts) is the word. The rest is a submarine (Richard England’s Manikata chapel), a dovecote on stilts (Piano’s parliament building), a giant wigwam (the Fgura church), and so on.

Exactly how baroque might figure in 2014, and in the middle of a roundabout at that, must remain a mystery. I suppose the sparks at the eternally-sparring councils will say that it’s a replica, a reconstruction, and that therefore it must be baroque and I’m a silly man.

Be that as it may, it brings me to my second point, that on the wisdom or otherwise of reconstruction. Take Dresden as an example.

Built in the 18th century, the Frauenkirche was an outstanding example of baroque architecture. Only in 1945 it was destroyed by Allied incendiary bombs in the notorious air raids that left tens of thousands of people dead and many more homeless.

The options were to rebuild after the original, or to preserve what was left of it as a war memorial. The first was always on the cards. As a wise anthropologist once told me, a country that rebuilds is one that hasn’t really been defeated. In the event, and for obvious reasons, it was one that dithered.

The damn thing is ugly, ugly, ugly. The original arch was agreeable enough, in context

The abridged version is that, following the reunification of Germany, a citizens’ movement got together to get the job done. A phenomenal number of salvaged bits and pieces were retraced and sorted, and by 2005 the new Frauenkirche was completed.

New, or old? That’s a conundrum that takes us back to the ancient paradox of Theseus’s ship. (How many rotted planks must Theseus replace for his old ship to become his new ship?) It’s also the perennial thorn in the side of the politics of reconstruction and restoration.

Not that the people behind the L-Ark tal-Akwidott need philosophise all that much. For one, there are no stones to be salvaged and sorted. The original arch was dismantled in 1943 and the only things that remain are two plaques.

Besides, the kind of logic of reconstruction that underwrote the Dresden project is quite simply nowhere in sight here. The rebuilding of the Frauenkirche stood for post-war healing and the reconciliation of the two Germanies. The rubric is a broad one and includes the Old Bridge in Mostar, rebuilt after the Balkan wars of the 1990s, among other examples.

The three warring councils are not alone in their fetish. Many in Vittoriosa, for example, think that the old clock tower should be rebuilt. If we must find some method in the madness, we might say it’s a form of cultural re-appropriation that’s linked to the growing significance of local politics.

Still, that leaves us with two problems. First, to rebuild several decades after the event, and in a way that doesn’t reflect popular and long-term movements, lacks political significance. Second, it strikes me that the only ideas for reconstruction there may be are based on little more than a gormless nostalgia.

I fear a replica Teatru Rjal on a roundabout somewhere is next.