Burying Barry

I remember a tongue-in-cheek argument which went something like this: assume you are the voice of the people, assume the voice of the people is the voice of God (“Vox Popoli, Vox Dei”, no?), ergo your voice is the voice of God.

The argument is logically sound, it’s the premises that are fatuous. Not that that ever served to hold back commenters on the Times from making claims on behalf of the people, with one letter today going as far as to claim that the people “have voted” just by commenting online. Oddly enough these opinions are often accompanied with the tired quote that Valletta is a city “built by gentlemen for gentlemen” — when “gentleman” obviously signified a class distinction to show detachment from the hoi polloi.

Renzo Piano is not some poor, starving architect desperate to get some sort of commission. He has a long track record, a reputation and admiration to go with it and, I’m pretty sure, a long list of potential clients in his waiting room. You may not like his Centre Pompidou (which, it is worth reminding, houses a museum of modern art and a research centre for acoustics). But that is definitely not enough grounds to dismiss him considering his portfolio is long and extensive.

Which also means that the “money motive” was hardly the strongest in this case. This point is worth making for no other reason that the commenters on the Times, think they smell a rat. Architects’ fees in Malta, by the way, are fixed by law and it has already been made clear that the law will be applied and Piano will be paid as much as any other architect would have been paid for a project of that size.

Now to the main changes proposed. First, the characterless Freedom Square is to go. The attempt to redesign Valletta’s entrance in a monumental style in the late 1960s was not only lamentable, it was thwarted to render any sense of “monumentality” the design concept might have had into sheer blandness. Loss of open space, somebody complained, in a city that’s surrounded on three sides by sea. A walled city which can afford some extra space for … parking cars. Oh, and Carnival, although for some four centuries before the space was cleared, space or perceived lack thereof did not seem to be a constraint on the revelry.

Second, city gate. No longer to be a gate just a breach in the wall, say some others, oblivious to the fact — probably due to the fact that it’s convenient — that that’s what Glormu Cassar Avenue already is. The Turks might even considering staging another siege. If they do they will presumably not take note of what the Germans did in the last one rendering the military value of the walls to nil. The bastions may be “firm” and “high” as they are praised in the ludicrous song “Viva Malta” but the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica seemed unimpressed. And they got to the Opera House without the need to breach walls. Piano’s proposal gives Valletta a more welcoming and open look while, at the same time, retaining and emphasising the austere and sparse geometric feel of the rest of the city’s military architecture.

Which brings me to the third element of the design, the site of the Royal Opera House. I had previously noted that the calls to rebuild it “as it was” had died down. Well, not on the Times comment pages, I regretfully note. Just as a reminder to those who lament Government commissioning a foreigner that Edward Middleton Barry was British. Piano is manifestly a man interested, if not in love, with Valletta having had a keen interest for some twenty five years. Barry did not even visit Malta let alone the site which, at first, he thought was flat. When informed of the slight slope he simply added a “platform” which, thankfully, alleviated the nauseating effect of the colonnade.

Barry’s achievement is that he managed to combine an attitude of condescension (include here the neo-classical features, so favoured by the British colonial authorities) with the Maltese love for over-wrought lavur. The result was something which, incredibly, few seem to have found at odds in the “baroque city” — that catch-all category which somehow could include the elaborate faced of the Auberge de Castille, the military geometry of St James Cavalier, the “libertine” style of Palazzo Ferreria and Barry’s ħamallata.

Or maybe they did. In the immediate post-War we almost got something that was not Barry, a design by Italian architects (yeah, foreigners … unlike Barry) which only got shelved because of other pressing priorities. And it would not have been unique. None of the significant Valletta buildings that came down during the War were rebuilt like the original. Well, almost. The facade of the old Auberge d’Auvergne Provence was reproduced in the case of the Law Courts with the unfortunate addition of … wait for it … a colonnade! A homage to Barry and all things neo-classical? Don’t know but that should have been enough warning.

A final point on the open air theatre. A poor man’s version of a theatre is has been said. Exposing possible operaic performances to the elements. They stage open air opera in the Verona Arena but — if we’ll ever afford to stage an operaic performance — the exception maltaise applies. Here’s Joseph Vella-Bondin, Malta’s “acknowledged leading bass singer”:

A project cannot be justified on the rationale that open-air venues in historical ruins like the Terme di Caracalla do well. Malta is a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean and consequently, with its specific climatic conditions and its particular demographical, religious and social situations. In the context of a permanent open-air theatre, these factors may require a careful assessment before scarce resources are committed to such a project.

Now somebody please tell me why being a “small island in the middle of the Mediterranean” should give you any specific climatic, demographical, religious and social conditions which are not the case in Rome.

Wont of something sensible on the subject and can’t find it? May I suggest Mark-Anthony Falzon’s column last Sunday. Here’s a lengthy extract:

For my part, I choose to belong to that community which will most likely win the competition (provided the project actually materialises – I have said before that I will only believe it when I put my finger into the wet cement). Let’s call it the ‘let Piano do as he pleases’ community. Just as well it will win, for the following reason.

An architect is a bit like a judge. A judge presides over court proceedings and listens to a number (at least two unless the defendant pleads guilty) of interpretations. At some point, however, the judge must perform the violence of stopping the ping-pong process in favour of one interpretation.

Likewise, an architect has a number of options available, each of which usually expresses the desires of a particular community. Because they must at some point build, however, the architect performs the violence of ‘freezing’ a community and representing it in brick and mortar.

That is why we need such a great architect for such a great space. The skateboarding and melitensia boffins simply wouldn’t do. Whatever Piano chooses to freeze will very likely be worth the trouble, because he is Renzo Piano.