As I write, the building in Marsa that was once the Freedom Press is hours away from being demolished. Inaugurated in September 1963, Freedom Press was the first purpose-built headquarters of the Labour Party. I’m surprised the loss has been met with general indifference. The Labour Party is not exactly a local pigeon fanciers’ club, and yet it is dry eyes all round for one of its major landmarks.
Freedom Press is no architectural gem, truth be told. Not that there’s anything the matter with it, or that it’s worse than much of the rest. It’s just that unlike, say, a ‘baroque townhouse’ in Sliema, its featurelessness makes it impossible to slot within a genre or an idiom. Rather like the kind of furniture that is known as ‘timeless’, it could have been built anywhere, anytime, by anyone.
Except it wasn’t. In 1961, the national executive of the Labour Party was interdicted by the bishops. The period is etched in the memory of Labourites as żmien id-dnub il-mejjet (the time of mortal sin). What hung in the balance was not so much an election result, or leg room in hell, but rather the continued existence of the party itself.
This, then, was a party and its socialist project under siege. Thus the appeals to suldati tal-azzar (soldiers of steel), a description that sounds hollow and frankly silly now, but that was real and visceral then.
In the event, the besieged were not happy to merely defend their walls; rather, they put up new ones. The building of Freedom Press at such a difficult time was a tremendous act of defiance. It said that the party would defend itself, but also that it was certain of the outcome and had plans for the future.
It matters, too, that the place was built by volunteers. In the broad sense, volunteering has an aura of selflessness about it that is usually linked to some or other ideal.
In this case in particular, the reliance on volunteers was even more telling. At the time, the Labour Party had little access to big money. Indeed, it modelled itself as the enemy of the kind of philanthropists who nowadays donate millions and expect nothing in return. The building of Freedom Press proved that the party could rely on the sweat of the working class.
The press was built of donated materials by people who had manual jobs elsewhere. Which meant that weekends were the busiest part of the week – and that included Sundays. It seems the leader of the synagogue was unhappy about this. The result was more defiance, as Labourites decided that it was, in fact, lawful to do good on a Sabbath.
It does not make sense to fret about the loss of a Sliema house and not care a jot about the loss of Freedom Press
India serves up a useful comparison. In 1989, and as part of a violent conflict over a contested site, a Hindu organisation launched a campaign that saw supporters donate shilas (bricks) for the building of a temple to the god Ram. The shilas were baked in kilns all over India, and sometimes beyond, and arrived on site wrapped in saffron cloth and inscribed with the words ‘Sri Ram’ (Lord Ram).
The point is that every block of stone at Freedom Press matters. The main drift is that of a collective effort by Labourites at one of the most trying times in the history of the party. Each of the various sub-plots is a strand in the fabric of the political history of the period. And, because the Labour Party has no exclusive ownership of its history, it’s a story that should concern all of us.
It’s a concern that gets to the heart of the matter and raises a question that is fundamental to planning: How do we allocate value to our built environment?
Architecture alone cannot provide the answer. A few months ago a house outside the citadel in Gozo found itself at the centre of an almighty ruck. Many people were upset that it was about to be demolished, and yet the house itself was rather ugly. For that matter, some of the doomed Sliema townhouses at the centre of perennial controversy aren’t exactly architecture-textbook material.
The point is, however, that they matter because of what they mean. To Sliema people especially, the loss of a streetscape means the loss of a repository of stories. Pretty or not, it is right that townhouses should not go without a fuss.
By this logic, it does not make sense to fret about the loss of a Sliema house and not care a jot about the loss of Freedom Press. And, much as I wish mine were a straw-man argument, the truth is that no one – and least of all Labour – seems to have bothered about the Marsa building.
As a matter of fact, it’s yet another townhouse that was making the headlines last week.
There’s another thing. The road works that later today will destroy Freedom Press are also set to spell the end for a neighbouring swathe of period buildings. I have in mind the old BIM factory as well as some other good examples on the opposite side of the present road. Together, they make up a Modernist landscape from the early 1960s that could easily be saved and rehabilitated.
Marsa is thought to be neither rich nor good-looking. In fact, it’s both. Only if things go the way of Freedom Press, it will soon end up an impoverished wasteland of tarmac.
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