Prof. Richard England’s lifetime of work has been brought together for a unique show curated by author and leading architecture critic Charles Knevitt, former correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph and The Times of London and former director of the Royal Institute of British Architects Trust.
By looking at his drawings you will be taken on a journey: from Italy to London, from Greece to Egypt, from Prague to Mythopoli
Within the exhibition, architecture is the dominating art, but space is given to sculpture, graphics and art, as well as to England’s publications.
In his perceptive critical appreciation, Knevitt writes that “England has worked with Malta’s local tradition not against it, respecting mass over void, shade over direct sunlight, topography, climate, materials and the memory of place”.
The first thing that comes to mind after reading this is England’s Church of St Joseph at Manikata. Built between 1962 and 1974, this church, that was not easily accepted by the community of farmers, is in itself a monument to the local girna, the dry stone hut that dots our countryside.
In spite of the fact that England did his best to remain sensitive to the church’s surroundings, its context has been forever tarnished by the insensitivity of later development, as I often notice when driving through what once was an unspoilt country road.
In such idyllic contexts, if development is insensitive to its environment, then it should simply not be there, despite its good design. The tragedy is that such development cannot be reversed. The results are often not taken into account, especially by owners of a plot of land, who will many times not bother even considering them.
The main message that England wants to bring across is that Malta is unfortunately fast-changing, and not for the better; yet. Development is not always a good thing, and we may not even realise it as it is taking place.
In this respect, a fitting quote that England said to me is by Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray: “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
When greed kicks in, the landscape suffers an irreversible desecration. Being into the arts, and extremely sensitive to my surrounding environment, to the extent of being called naive, I cannot help but feel insulted by the over-construction that is ongoing. As I write, I have to tolerate the sound of construction, workers and the like on more than one site.
England is a firm believer in respecting the past, acknowledging it and grafting onto it; not copy-ing the vernacular, but extract-ing from it and being inspired by it, while not looking backwards. “We are after an architecture of evolution, not revolution,” he reiterates.
Another message that is borne out of the abundance of graphic work and drawings in this exhibition is directed especially to architecture students who often ask why they should be sketching when they can do everything on a computer.
England is a firm believer in architects being able to sketch and draw, saying that it should be obvious for them to do so, especially to comprehend the importance of space, and the difference in scale when designing buildings and rooms, and so on.
A sketch becomes an extension of the mind’s eye, and one can observe a little bit of what is going on in England’s mind by pondering over the myriad of exhibits, particularly the ink drawings.
And by looking at his drawings you will be taken on a journey: from Italy to London, from Greece to Egypt, from Prague to Mythopoli – the latter consisting of designs of imaginary cities beautifully conceived by England and given life on paper.
England’s belief in needing a love for architecture and a dedication towards it, as well as a sensitivity to what is around you, led him to introduce History of Art lectures under the direction of Mario Buhagiar when he was Dean of the then Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering. That is how History of Art (now a Department in the Faculty of Arts) was introduced as an academic discipline at University .
This retrospective is a great showcase of England’s lifetime of work. But it is more than that. There is a sound message being put forward throughout the exhibition and in the exhibition catalogue alike. The message is about something that we seem to have lost focus of – quality.
At least I can forget what monsters we are creating while surrounded by England’s several designs in this exhibition such as his 1980s design for the theatre on the old Opera House site in Valletta.
Richard England’s retrospective exhibition is open until July 19 at the Bank of Valletta head office in Santa Venera.