The Sunday Times of Malta (May 29) has given well-deserved prominence to architect and perceptive architecture historian Edward Said’s concern on the ill-advised demolition of two 1950s terrace houses in Birkirkara Road, St Julian’s, to be replaced by garages and apartment buildings.
The development is symptomatic of the now sadly entrenched insensitivity that characterises planning in Malta, which has been gaining accelerated momentum since the 1960s.
The destructive effect of bad planning and ill-sited buildings on the Maltese built heritage were already highlighted in two prophetic papers by Ian Masser, Professor of Civic Design at Liverpool University: ‘Buġibba Bursting at the Seams’, (The Sunday Times of Malta, August 26, 1968) and, more significantly, ‘The Perils of Non-Planning’, (Architectural Review: Malta, Past, Present and Future, July 1969). But the warnings fell on deaf ears. This special issue of the Architectural Review also had a sad study, ‘Rape of a Village’ by Peter Richardson, on misguided ideas of urban improvement that are still very relevant today. It takes as a case study what was happening in Żurrieq.
Good intentions and initiatives were, as is always the case, not lacking, but they were all conveniently shelved. The most important was the drawing up of a Protective Inventory of Maltese Monuments and Sites, undertaken by the government of newly independent Malta under the aegis of the Council for Cultural Cooperation of the Council of Europe.
The primary objective of the project, directed by Pietro Gazzola (1908-1975), was to undertake a survey of Malta and put under the lens the threat to the national built heritage created by the industrial and touristic development generated by the diversification of the economy as a result of the British Services rundown. Progress was made but it came to a halt with the change of government in 1971.
It is a long, sad story, and the rape of the built heritage since 1971 has been relentless. As the St Julian’s houses show, the lesson has not been learnt and the damage done is beyond redress.