Rummaging through my old travel memoirs, I came across this photo of Lisbon, which has become topical because of our new parliament building at Valletta’s City Gate.

The building (on the left) situated at the 1998 Expo Site (the Park of Nations) on the Tagus river on the edge of Lisbon, in an area largely dominated by Santiago Calatrava, who with Frank Gehry, Kenzo Tange, I.M. Pei, Renzo Piano and others, is among the leading lights of contemporary architecture.

The context is very different in our case, that of a historic baroque city.

The idea of enlivening a flat surface by giving it a dynamic texture is, of course, quite old and can be traced back at least to Biagio Rossetti’s Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara which was started in 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. Nothing is new under the sun.

Coming back to our parliament buildings, I do not see why the area should be called Piazza it-Teatru Rjal. Our teatru was once rjal but has fallen on hard times, and is under very reduced circumstances.

If anything, the area should be called Pjazza it-Teatru Dekadut.

If we want to give pride of place to our new parliament building we could call it Parmesan Square or, in deference to Piano who is Genoese, Piazza al Pesto.

We may not be having the last laugh, though. When St Denis and Chartres were built nearly a thousand years ago, people thought the style was so outrageous that they called it ‘Gothic’, meaning ‘barbarian’. Maybe one day we will have buildings looking like hot water bottles or vacuum cleaners!