It is an 'absolute necessity' for Renzo Piano’s proposal for the garden in the City Gate ditch and the bus terminus layout to be made manifest, architect Richard England argues in an opinion piece in Times of Malta today.

"To leave the former as a car park and the latter in its present unsightly state would be a calamity that would only serve to decimate the superb quality of the whole enchanting scheme.

"The decision to house the hideous, amateurish and unbelievable ugly monti stalls adjacent to this masterpiece was, to say the least, an ill-conceived and
catastrophic one.

"The new Parliament and gate complex must be completed as envisioned by the Renzo Piano Workshop. To eliminate essential parts of the project and inflict ill-designed stalls on its adjacent periphery constitutes an unforgivable error that would only deduct from the overall superb quality of the whole project."

The well-known Maltese architect who had been commissioned to revamp City Gate before plans fell through heaps praise on Piano: "Only a master architect of the stature of Renzo Piano could have turned Malta stone in Malta lace."

His comments came amid an ongoing controversy on the transfer of the open market to Ordnance Street, alongside the new parliament building, as well as plans to extend the Valletta bus terminus.

Read the entireopinion piece in Times of Malta and the e-paper on timesofmalta.com Premium. See also a repeat of TimesTalk which discussed the issue, at http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150206/timestalk/watch-the-renzo-piano-project-did-it-hit-the-right-note.555051