3rd Seminar on Landscape Architecture in Malta
Hon. Minister, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to the 3rd Seminar on Landscape Architecture in Malta
I presume that I have been asked to open this seminar, not because I had any role in the work
that will also be presented today, in connection with the Landscape Architecture Proposals for
Marsascala, but in my relatively new role as Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Civil
Engineering at the University of Malta. Actually, this is no longer the case, because the
University has just approved a proposal to change the name of our Faculty to the Faculty for
the Built Environment, a proposal which, to tell the truth, had already been floated in the late
eighties, and one which, I think, has the full support of the Kamra tal-Periti.
This change is not a cosmetic one, nor is it a disrespectful abandonment of the importance of
Architecture or of Civil Engineering. I believe that it is an important statement by the Faculty, to
its members, that is, the staff and students, and also to Maltese society, that it has, now more
than ever, become vitally necessary to address the problems of the Built Environment in a
holistic, comprehensive, manner.
Why the Built Environment? Why not the whole Environment, for that matter?
The publication, which is being launched today, includes a reference to a speech given in
2007, by Prof. Arno Sighart Schmid, wherein he uses the beautiful phrase “The Precarious
Balance between Nature and Development”. The issue of this “precarious balance” is certainly
a very topical one. If it refers to the balance between the environment which is untouched,
“untainted”, by man and the paraphernalia of modern human habitation, on the one side, and
the environment which has been touched, and hence modified, by human intervention, or
occupation, then I would think that it is something very difficult to achieve in Malta, with its size
and the density of its population.
Most of what we call “countryside” is not, in fact, virgin jungle, or unexplored desert, or
inaccessible mountain region – most of our countryside is actually man-made. There are,
obviously, some pockets where this is not the case, but I am sure that most of you will agree
that the bigger part of the land surface of Malta and Gozo has been “touched” by man. In this
sense, therefore, the Faculty for the Built Environment must concern itself with human
intervention, and habitation, over most of the land surface of Malta.
Nevertheless, it does not follow that, within this reduced portion of our total land surface, within
this built environment, there is no place for nature. On the contrary, the very density of the
human interventions over most of our land area requires we ensure that nature is present even
more – possibly not in the unplanned, vigorous, and casual, way that nature likes to be – but in
a more deliberate, more planned, in an almost “tamed” but stimulating way.
In the same paper, Prof. Arno Sighart Schmidt talks about the landscape architect as the link
between the “ecological and social disciplines” (dare I say, the planners), the “designers”,
(presumably he means, the architects and urban designers), and the “structural architects and
engineers”, (by which I think he means the effective builders, or technologists). To a degree, I
find parallels between this vision and the vision that motivates the educational philosophy of
our Faculty, and hence the change of name of the Faculty; and the vision that I think must
continue to inform the Faculty in the re-structuring exercise it is currently undergoing. The Built
Environment, the whole of the Man-Made Environment, has to be addressed in its totality. It
cannot be considered as a collection of architect-designed buildings, (or other). It is, in this
sense, more important than architecture, or, at least, than architecture understood in the sense
of style, elevation, and the like.
It is my view that the built environment in Malta, our built environment, has become
irredeemably ugly. However, contrary to some, (or to many, perhaps), I do not believe that this
is a consequence of high-rise, or concrete, or high density or “modern” architecture; or the fact
that we do not build timber balconies anymore – or stone arches, for that matter. In fact, I think
that some of the modern additions to our villages, where the density is still low, and the
buildings low-rise, where the building material is stone, and the style more vernacular, the
overall built environment is not any better; indeed it is often much worse. The problems must
lie elsewhere; one problem is certainly a complete loss of “amor propju” in what we do – we
are plagued by an ad hoc, shoddy, make-shift, shanty-town mentality to what we allow to be
done by some, (what we do ourselves), in the public realm of the built environment – often, in
an unbelievable contrast with what we do in the private realm of our houses –our intimate
environment. It is almost as if we have developed high sensibilities to what we want to see and
to have, inside our dwellings, but are completely blind, or completely insensitive, to what
happens in all that space out there.
I believe that this is also the point made by the Urban Challenge “manifesto” published earlier
this year by the local Kamra tal-Periti.
Indeed I am often completely baffled how, as a society, we remain comfortable with the visual
mess in between buildings – the wires, the lamp-posts, the uneven pavements (and I am not
talking about the broken ones), the variety of ugly telephone booths, the superfluous traffic
signs, the jungle of advertisements and shop-fronts – visual clutter everywhere.
And, in general, for buildings as well as for the spaces and things in between, this ugliness
does not arise only because of intrinsically poor design, or a complete lack of it – but because
of shoddy shoddy workmanship.
We have completely lost the craft of “making”. An article in this October’s issue of The
Architect reminded me how the Bauhaus was born as a result of a protest by a group of
industrialists, businessmen, artists and architects, in 1907, on the ugliness of the their built
environment, and a demand for the “revival of artistic, moral and social ethics in industry” –
most of you here are familiar with the effects of the Bauhaus school of design throughout the
world. Maybe, this is the change we require. A change of the culture of “making”.
The reference to the Bauhaus brings me back to the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences,
whose Landscape Architecture Department has, for a number of years, now, looked at Malta
as an interesting location for Landscape Architecture Workshops for its students. The
protagonists of these workshops, also present at this seminar, will talk about their experiences
in Malta; and the results of their more recent workshop, focused on the environs of
Marsascala, are being exhibited in Torri San Tumas over this week.
I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the issue of Landscape Architecture in Malta, as
part of the changes that have to be made in order to heal, or repair, the environment in which
we live – especially the visual environment. I happen to think that the holistic landscape
approach to resolving visual clutter, advocated through these Workshops, is a much more
useful and productive tool for urban planning and design, and development control, than the
myriad of prescriptive rules that underlie our current planning systems. I therefore consider this
seminar as an important step in the search for a radical change in the way we address our built
environment, over the coming years.
Change is not easy. It tends to be resisted by those who fear the perceived loss of traditional
values, whatever this may mean, or by those who may feel threatened by the fact that the
change, from the way they used to do things, may make them irrelevant or redundant. Change
is also resisted because it requires a lot of hard work. Neither is change for change’s sake
particularly useful.
But, the current system is not working, and therefore change we must. We have embarked on
change within our Faculty – and it will be a long slog. This seminar today will, I think, address
the changes required for the Restoration of Malta, as the title of the Panel Discussion puts it, –
not of a building, or a group of buildings, but the restoration of the whole “man-made”
environment which is Malta.
I have probably opened the seminar by taking you out of point. At the same time as I thank the
Minister for being here, and the Ministry for having supported this initiative, I will leave it to the
Minister to bring the seminar back within its theme. There are many parallels between what an
architect, or a landscape architect, wants to do, and what a politician aspires to do – in the
sense of promoting change, to improve the environment of life.
Indeed, as Arthur Drexler, Director, Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of
Modern Art, New York, puts it, “an alternative to political romance is to be an architect” We
cannot all be ministers, but we can be architects, or landscape architects, and make just as an
effective mark on our environment.
Thank you.