Political events in the US and in Britain this year were especially depressing as they were fuelled by such hostile sentiments – racism and bigotry, misogyny and misplaced arrogant patriotism all had a field day. Crowds cheered at the idea of building walls or borders.
Images reaching our screens from the Middle East show cruelty, pain and destruction. Here in Malta, we constantly hear new stories of secretive deals and potential corruption at the highest levels of government. What a demoralising reality.
As a welcome antidote to all this, I had the pleasant experience last week of visiting the retirement home of the MUSEUM society in Santa Venera, the Dar il-Ħanin Samaritan (House of the Good Samaritan). It is set among non-descript residential and semi-industrial buildings, with the ubiquitous large crane on a construction site next door.
Entering this complex is like stumbling upon a tranquil, serene refuge in the midst of chaos and noise. Its meditative garden and water chapel, flanked by running water over white pebbles, provide quiet, beautiful spaces for contemplation and healing.
The spaces are also remarkable for another reason. The garden is filled with columns and shapes in bright, vibrant colours. It contains free-standing screens, arcades and facades, like a theatrical stage-set. The soft play of water, shade and light creates changing, subtle moods depending on the time of day. The spaces have echoes of a magical world, a wonderland of childhood, a place of make-believe, shifting between reality and unreality.
The playful hand of the poet-architect, Richard England, is instantly recognisable. His buildings are functional but always try do much more than provide practical, liveable spaces, yearning to add an artistic and spiritual dimension to our everyday existence.
His structures, and especially his colourful and imaginative gardens, narrate stories and attempt to evoke moods and memories. They are filled with unexpected corners that act like theatre sets, and water features which mirror the surrounding sculptural forms. They are dreamscapes, not landscapes. England is inspired by Tennessee Williams: “I don’t want reality, I want magic.”
Architecture may seem as though it is intended to last forever, but it does not. Here in Malta, demolition is the order of the day
Bringing together different art forms can create wonderful synergies. The pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, for example, claimed that he was firstly a poet. His paintings were inspired by the words, symbols and narratives of literature, which he expressed in a visual language which he made so recognisably his own. He believed strongly that all the different art forms were intimately related, and encouraged his painter and sculptor friends to also try their hand at other forms of artistic expression.
England’s latest book, Sanctuaries of the Soul, just published this month, reveals how deeply his architecture is inspired by other art forms, particularly by painting and literature. The influences of the painter Giorgio de Chirico, as well as Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, are especially evident in his gardens and outdoor spaces.
Architecture may seem as though it is intended to last forever, but it does not. Here in Malta, demolition is the order of the day. It is at least some consolation that the architectural achievements of our nation are preserved in this way, in beautiful books. These images will perhaps themselves, in turn, become the memories that inspire future buildings.
The appeals farce
Watching two government authorities battle over planning decisions at a tribunal is not a happy scene. If the Environment Authority is against a permit, then the Planning Authority should listen, full stop. This is what people hoped for when promised in the last electoral campaign that environmental concerns would be high on the agenda.
When the government split Mepa earlier this year, it had promoted the new Environment Authority’s right to appeal against the Planning Authority’s decisions as a great step forward. Now, at ERA’s first-ever appeal on a big permit, the PA has taken up its cudgel to vociferously argue that it cannot appeal after all. What a farce!
This disagreement is complex from a political point of view, as the government had repeatedly emphasised the ERA’s right to appeal when justifying the Mepa demerger. The government was criticised for over-reliance on appeals rather than getting it right at the earlier stages of an application before approval, but it had staunchly defended its position.
The flaws in this approach were evident from the start and were pointed out repeatedly by NGOs and others. Gagging ERA at this stage would call into question some of the fundamental premises with which the demerger was sold to the public.
In the parliamentary debates about the new appeals tribunal law in 2015, then environment minister Leo Brincat said that ERA’s right to appeal was a “historical” step and the most fundamental difference in the new legislation. Then parliamentary secretary for planning Michael Farrugia described it as a breakthrough. Justice Minister Owen Bonnici claimed that the new legislation was one of the greenest Bills to be passed by Parliament.
If ERA’s right to appeal is now denied, there are two possible options, neither of which is pretty. It would mean that the way the new law was drafted was either deceptive or incompetent.
petracdingli@gmail.com