Australia Hall, in St Andrew’s, may be the centre of a political controversy but that seems to have mattered little to the street artist who turned the dilapidated historical building into his personal canvas.

A series of street art pieces, some depicting Maltese icons such as Cisk and the bust of a knight of St John, appeared on the walls of Australia Hall over the past month.

The work seems to be that of London-based Spanish artist ‘sortwo’, whose signature appears on the pieces and who uploaded several shots of the works-in-progress and the completed artwork on his Instagram page.

The work seems to be that of London-based Spanish artist ‘sortwo’

Some of those who contacted this newspaper over the matter considered the work as vandalising a historical location while others saw it as street art in a place already compromised.

Australia Hall was built in 1915 as a soldiers’ recreation centre and a monument to the wounded Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) troops who were nursed in Malta.

The hall became the property of the Maltese government in 1978 and was later acquired by the Labour Party. Controversy erupted in 2014 after it emerged that Labour had sold the hall and 6,000 square metres of land in St Andrew’s to a private company for €582,000.