Poor Valletta

 

I am a fan of architecture and when editing the Malta Sunday Times supplements, Architecture was my favourite. As in most other genre, my taste is quite eclectic and I love some contemporary buildings as well as my favourite Baroque, the latter maybe because of the Knights of Malta’s heritage – Valletta, the city I was born and grew up in.

I was therefore interested in watching Renzo Piano being interviewed by Sarah Montague on Hard Talk (BBC World) because I cannot forgive him for replacing our city gate with a gap. The top of the gate was one of the few access points into Valletta and since it lead me via Hastings Gardens to where I grew up I miss it terribly.

He was being interviewed as the Shard in London was officially opened this month. I had walked past the construction site often on my way from London Bridge Station to my son’s apartment and had watched its progress with interest. So what did Piano have to say about perhaps the tallest building in Western Europe right now?

He did not agree when Sarah Montague asked him “Isn’t the Shard a monument to wealth and power?” Because he said it is open to everyone. She also asked him whether he agreed that the public should pay £25 (to go to the top, I presume). He said he did not, but that it was beyond his control, which of course it is. Architects always avoid uncomfortable questions by saying “Ah, but it is the client who rules”. When I recently asked an architect, discussing that point generally, “Couldn’t the architect just refuse a project if s/he disagrees on certain principals?” His response was “Yes, but then the client would just go to another architect.” Meaning s/he would lose the work.

Anyway, what really struck me in the Piano interview was this “I do not live in the sensation that everything I do is right. It is always a great surprise... If you make something wrong it is wrong forever”, Ms Montague asked him does it mean “If you do something wrong you can’t fix it?” Piano answered, “Exactly, that’s the tragedy. That is why as an architect you have a very dangerous job to perform and it is even more dangerous for the other people because if you do something wrong it is forever.”

Poor Valletta