Valletta, Back to Its Future
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Valletta skyline. Courtesy of Aron Mifsud Bonnici (AronMifsudBonnici.com). Candidate European Capital of Culture, 2018 Valletta, Back to its Future alletta, spring 2010: a British European identity, a city which respects Born as a fighting machine, Valletta theatre impresario, a Maltese its past while embracing its European changed guise even as its bastions and Vstage director and a French future in a Euro-Med context." grand palaces, auberges , took shape. diplomat greet each other in Republic When Benjamin Disraeli visited Valletta in After the Great Siege, riches flowed in Street. Valletta, spring 1710: the 1830 before he became Britain's prime from most of Europe's nobility and Portuguese Grand Master Ramon minister, he described it as "a city of Valletta slipped into a new role as patron Perellos raises a hand in polite greeting palaces built by gentlemen for of the arts. to the Pope's representative, the gentlemen", its architectural riches Valletta entered a golden age under the Inquisitor, as their sedan chairs pass. comparable to those of Venice and Knights as a showcase of leading-edge Three hundred years apart, yet these two worthy of Palladio. Visitors today still European culture, art and architecture. events characterise Valletta. It's a city share in Disraeli's view. Valletta is So many of Europe's great creatives of that has been always a melting pot of dominated by the vast cultural legacy of the time worked for the Order, Valletta cultures, open to outsiders and the Order of the Knights of St John who could claim to be a forerunner city of influenced by them. All along though, it founded the city in 1566, and made it culture. Among them was Michelangelo has retained a unique sense of self as a their seat for 232 years. Merisi da Caravaggio whose largest and European, yet distinctly Mediterranean Named after French Grand Master Jean only signed canvas, depicting the city. Valletta's Mayor, Alexiei Dingli, Parisot de la Valette, who defended the beheading of St John the Baptist, hangs echoes this when he says "Valletta is a islands successfully at the Great Siege of in St John's Co-Cathedral. mirror which reflects our common Malta in 1565, Valletta was a fortress city, European heritage, a canvas which lends Christian Europe's most southerly A city in search of new authors its spaces to showcase the diverse outpost against the Ottoman Empire. Valletta was created as a stage set for 12 EUROPEAN CAPITALS OF CULTURE The City Gate Project, Valletta. Courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop, sketch by Renzo Piano. moving in converting spacious facilities. Ailing docks are now marinas patricians' houses into des res here and fit for super yachts. European Union seeing the potential of creative and funds are helping shore up Valletta's gastronomic businesses there. Private bastions. initiatives and public works are joining Valletta is centre stage again for trade, forces to breathe life into Valletta. this time in a cultural currency. The city, St James' Cavalier, a fort at Valletta's city flanked by its two massive natural gate, has transformed from run-down harbours - Grand Harbour and government printing press into a Centre Marsamxetto - is an evocative backdrop for Creativity. Its art-house cinema, to world-class events such as the performance spaces and exhibition halls annual, month-long Malta Arts Festival in people from beyond Malta's shores. are giving free reign to new cultural July. Andalusian flamenco troops, When they went, it was left the expression and experimentation in Malta. American ballad singers, British administrative, judicial and commercial Old music halls, once favourite haunts of Shakespearian actors and numerous centre of Malta, but in search of a new British service personnel, are now wine local artists find themselves performing cultural role. With its defences unused, bars doubling up as arts' venues, or side by side in venues ranging from city colonisers long gone and industrial being snapped up as swish retail units. piazzas and a botanical gardens to the harbours abandoned by trade, what Valletta has seen a derelict quay become ruins of a 19th century opera and palace does Valletta want to be now? Where a prestigious commercial waterfront with courtyards. next for this isolated capital cafes, restaurants and cruise liner The Malta International Jazz Festival in overshadowed by history and the responsibility of preserving a Europe- wide artistic, cultural and architectural heritage? Valletta may have been built by gentlemen, but its mission in the 21st century is to be a 'city of the people for the people'; its cultural life not defined in stone, but in what it does. The city is seeing a rush of regeneration programmes making exciting use of its incredible heritage. Valletta is on a drive to be the relevant, contemporary city it was when founded nearly 450 years ago. Scene change Valletta's UNESCO World Heritage status is now a liberating force, not a straitjacket. New generations are Marsamxett Harbour: Courtesy of Aron Mifsud Bonnici (AronMifsudBonnici.com). EUROPEAN CAPITALS OF CULTURE 13 and returning them to the people. you. Valletta's pull has always reached European Regional Development Funds far beyond its bastions. Today, the city is are helping transform a run-down dock a magnet attracting up to 60,000 and inner creeks near the old power commuters a day, yet it has around only station into venues for leisure, yachting, 6,500 residents. Include its satellite heritage trails, cultural activities and towns and the population of this urban, quality retail and commercial spaces. 'greater Valletta' swells to around Living with a monument and making a 250,000, well over half that of the monument live are challenges facing not Maltese Islands. just the city of Valletta but all Malta. The country, like its capital, has an incredible Valletta as European City of wealth of heritage including more Culture UNESCO World Heritage: its seven Valletta is a city of contradictions. It has megalithic temple sites, some of which city status, though small. It was, and is predate Stonehenge by 1,000 years; and still, a European cultural centre, though the Hypogeum, a complex of on the limits of Europe, and it became a underground chambers, part temple, part strategic theatre of war by virtue of The 18th century Manoel Theatre. Courtesy of Walter Barbara. necropolis that was dug out by man in geography and history, not from its own around 2,500 B.C. desire. Built as a fortress, it could survive mid July each year is one of the best- On a short stay, and within half an hour only by being open to the outside world. loved uses of Valletta's old wharfs. It has of Valletta, visitors can span some 7,000 Connected historically by shipping, it is seen the greats grace its stage, and love years of not only Malta's cultural history, connected today by broadband. it so much they return. With bastions but also a great deal of the Valletta's bid to be a European City of one side and the flood-lit fortifications of Mediterranean's too. Even Gozo, Culture in 2018 gives contemporary the old Three Cities across Grand Malta's smaller sister island, is little more meaning to these age-old contradictions. Harbour, Malta Jazz is unique for its than an hour away from Valletta by road It looks not just north, but also south and setting alone. and ferry, and just 20 minutes by sea east as it rekindles cultural ties with old Italian architect Renzo Piano once said plane from Grand Harbour. protagonists in its history. This year's that Valletta was a city of ghosts, but no Malta Arts Festival is inviting an act from longer. April saw the start of his plans for A city by another name Istanbul, European City of Culture 2010 the regeneration of Valletta's city gate Any discussion of Valletta inevitably talks and the EU has just opened its Arab- area. Some €80m in government funds of Malta. The city and the state are Liaison Office on the city's fringes. is seeing the implementation of daring inseparable. Malta takes on Valletta's Valletta has gone back to its future. plans for a new parliament building, mantle every time it is described as public and performance spaces and a 'Fortress Island', or 'Nurse of the much-needed 'green lung'. The new- Mediterranean' for its role in World War design parliament will allow its current II. But can a micro island state in the seat, the imposing Grand Master's Mediterranean have cities at all? Palace, to be opened to the public. The Stand in Valletta's Upper Barrakka ruins of an old opera house, bombed flat Gardens jostling with the tourists in World War II, will become an open-air snapping photos of the Grand Harbour performance space. The fortification panorama and see the urban arc around ditches will see park benches rather than parked cars when they become landscaped gardens. City Gate may be stealing the limelight, but at the very tip of the Valletta peninsula is a vast fort that will see upward of €30 million in restoration supported by EU Structural Funds. Fort St Elmo, so huge it houses the Malta Police Academy and the War Museum with room to spare is being renovated to bring socio-economic and cultural life to the fringes of the city. For too long the city's waterfronts have been no-go zones of docks, warehouses and military bases. Now, the Grand Harbour Regeneration Project has set about restoring Valletta's harbours to their rightful place as a national asset Valletta Waterfront.