When world-renowned architect Renzo Piano was commissioned to redesign the entrance to Valletta, he said it was “a public project about civic pride and civic sense”. While he was right to describe it as being about civic pride, it has always been much more than this. It is a matter of national pride. The entrance to our capital city makes a statement about our great history and who we are today.

Within the next few weeks the Valletta entrance will have been transformed. The location of a modern Parliament building in this baroque city has been controversial on grounds of style, cost and other possible competing uses for the site.

While a judgment about all art and architecture is inevitably subjective, the juxtaposition of the Parliament building with the old bombed opera house and the massive St James Cavalier as the backdrop will be a remarkable sight.

We will have a modern building which will make the entrance to this historic city striking to all the world. Or will it?

That very much depends on whether the proposal to relocate the Monti hawkers from Merchants Street to an area spilling out of Ordnance Street is to prevail. It has been proposed that new stalls “consisting of a metal frame, fronted with white marine plywood and a red embossed eight-pointed cross motif” will shortly be placed along Ordnance Street and on either side of Republic Street.

Piano’s Parliament was designed on stilts so that the authentic fabric of this fortress-city looking towards St James’ Cavalier and the opera house ruins would be exposed to view, while the unobstructed sight-lines, which lie at the heart of this urban regeneration, are preserved.

It would be a senseless decision by the government which struck a back-street deal prior to the general election to allow Monti hawkers to set up in this area. A more grubby-looking entrance to Valletta – a World Heritage City, “a city built by gentlemen for gentlemen” – is difficult to imagine.

The government must think very hard about the wider implications of such a move. There are a number of factors which should make it pause for more thought. Overridingly, CHOGM later this year, the high-profile events in store for Malta in 2017 (when Malta takes over the presidency of the EU), the ambitious plans for Valletta City of Culture 2018, as well as the touristic and cultural heritage implications of having what passes for a North African souk or kasbah at the very entrance to Malta’s capital city should be decisive.

Even if it is limited to Ordnance Street, the Monti will have a severely detrimental effect on the aesthetics of the entrance to Valletta just when the unsightly monstrosities created in the 1960s and 1970s were about to be replaced by buildings which are architecturally iconic.

Even taking the most generous view, the Monti – no matter how it is dressed up – is shabby and incompatible with the needs and setting of a historic World Heritage City. Having the Monti immediately adjacent to this area will disfigure the new Valletta entrance.

In the interests of Malta’s rich cultural heritage and Valletta’s international reputation as a World Heritage City, the government must find a suitable alternative to this proposal.

The Prime Minister runs the danger of making Malta a cultural heritage laughing-stock if Monti hawkers get their way.

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