I had to smile at John Carmel Navarro’s letter about the new Parliament building (August 5) not because I disagree with him but as a result of a recent conversation.

A couple of weeks ago, I was seated on an Air Malta flight next to a young British couple who were disagreeing over the location of Sardinia. Having politely pointed out its true location, I found myself engaged in conversation with the lady, who was seated next to me and who turned out to be a Bulgarian-born architect.

The initial topic of our conversation was geography. It turns out that the former Communist rulers of her native country insisted that geography lessons for children be limited to knowing the names and locations of all the capital cities within the Soviet bloc.

Anyway, the focus switched to City Gate. I expressed similar sentiments to those of Mr Navarro, only to be given a polite but stern lecture about “ignorance” of the ”wonderful merits” of Renzo Piano’s design. Apparently, Mr Navarro, we are lazy for not wanting an architectural imprint on Valletta to represent the 21st century (it should be a “living city” not a “museum”). Additionally, the building is fantastically ergonomically de­signed to allow access all around it, for air to flow around the outside and for tremendous energy saving in terms of internal cooling, etc.

Finally, it is “ridiculous” that our current Parliament is located in a palace built by former colonial masters. The new building will affirm that Malta is now an independent nation. (Mind you, why we needed a foreign architect to design our statement of independence escapes me but, sadly, it did not occur to me at the time to ask my Piano-admiring fellow passenger).

Anyway, both Mr Navarro and I are architectural dinosaurs.