Kemm ahna pajjiz u poplu tal-Mickey Mouse
This morning I was busily coming up with a list of monumental buildings more beautiful than St John’s in cities far more ancient, UNDER which there have been perfectly sound excavations, when a very eminent friend who also happens to be something of a heritage expert emailed me with the obvious, and I stopped, wondering why on earth it hadn’t occurred to anyone before, including me. This is what he wrote:
I wonder if anyone mentioned the colossal excavations carried out under historical buildings over many years to create the tube/metro/underground systems in London, Paris, Moscow, New York, Rome – all cities brimming with historical and architectural gems. I cannot recall anything catastrophic happening there, though engineering technology was far less advanced…
Of course. Of course! His email reminded me that I actually rode the oldest underground train in Europe, in Budapest, which still has the original carriages. The tunnel is excavated between the city’s grandest street, and ends beneath its grandest square. But let’s just stick to Rome.
Europe’s most ancient and most impressive city monuments are in Europe’s most ancient city, which has a metro network that mines and cuts beneath them all. There’s a metro stop beneath the Colosseum, a metro tunnel beneath the 2,000-year-old Pantheon (a building which raises two fingers at St John’s in terms of historical importance), tunnels zipping beneath the Capitol Hill, and the most famous metro stop of all: the Piazza di Spagna, a huge underground space and vast underground tunnel directly beneath one of the most famous and instantly recognisable historic squares in the world.
And as my friend wrote, all these metro networks were excavated at a time when technology and methods were primitive – not much different, really, to what they were thousands of years earlier.
And I’m going to bring up Manhattan again. Roughly a hundred years ago, Irish navvies built the Empire State Building and many other skyscrapers by hand on reclaimed marshland, and later mined a network of commuter tunnels beneath. And nothing collapsed into anything else. The only casualties were many of the navvies themselves, whose names are on a plaque in the lobby of the most highly recognisable skyscraper of all time, the one made famous by King Kong. They could do it on reclaimed marsh with the methods of a century ago, and we can’t do it in rock, with the methods of the 21st century. Somebody posted a comment on this blog saying that “they didn’t have a precious 17th-century cathedral in Manhattan”. No, but they have something far, far more precious: thousands of lives compressed into a single space. All of us who were alive and conscious in September 2001 know that the consequences of a skyscraper collapsing into the excavations below are rather more painful than a crack in a church painting.
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“a metro tunnel beneath the 2,000-year-old Pantheon (a building which raises two fingers at St John’s in terms of historical importance)”
I’d rather like to think it’s one very significant finger raised…
[Daphne – In English sign language, you can raise two fingers. It’s called a reverse victory salute.]
According to Wikipedia, the London metro system is the oldest underground in the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_undergound
[Daphne – Yes, it’s the oldest full system, but the oldest single line is in Budapest. It runs up just one street, and works like a sort of underground tram. Re London – I wonder whether they had the equivalent of the FAA organising petitions against excavation beneath Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminister, etc etc ]
Whilst agreeing with your article, the whole point is that for all we know civil engineers and a proper EIA would have recommended not doing the project, in which case I myself would have put my two cents against it – but we will never know, will we, thanks to the mob from Sliema – and I am a pure Slimiz who has moved away now. And let’s face it, the EU would never fund anything if REAL exports recommended not doing it.
Daphne,
Your points are well made. Most of the excavations you mention were through clays though some would have gone through solid rock.
The danger in Malta as I understand it is that our limestone tends to be fissured and if you relieve pressures and stresses by excavating and tunneling you run the risk of causing movements and slippage (which has occurred elsewhere) as well as problems with the hydrography (if that is the right word).
My objections to the project were additionally as regards the desecration of the cemetery and the enormous impact of excavation would probably have on Valletta itself.
Consider this: a much much smaller underground museum at Monza took TEN (10) years to complete. I don’t think that the one at St John’s would have taken much less and the impact of the construction phase on the city would have been very great indeed especially if the tunnel housing the tapestries was simply sunk into St John’s Square and then covered over.
I have no doubt that if one threw EUR16 million at all the problems, the co-cathedral would not have been in danger of actual collapse. The real danger, surely, is that tiny (even imperceptible) movements (a millimetre or two would be enough) would damage the paintings in ceiling of St John’s. There can be no absolute guarantee against this (and I think no engineer worth his salt would give one) and therefore the risk should not be incurred – in my view anyway.
There was an incident here in Perth that happened after a tunnel was dug under the city to accommodate a new metro line, i.e. a pretty big tunnel. Months later and for no apparent reason a sky scraper above the tunnel moved on its foundations infinitesimally: internal glass doors dropped out of their hinges (I was in the building and saw this happen) and a large window pane dropped out of the building into the street far below. There was no danger of collapse but every door had to be rehung and every window had to be checked. The engineers had red faces and everyone shrugged their shoulders with a ‘these things happen when you dig tunnels’ attitude. One can replace damaged doors and windows with new ones but one cannot replace Preti wall paintings.
I do hope the directors of the Foundation will take a deep breath and stand back and look at alternatives to the withdrawn project. They have done a magnificent job on other work at the cathedral and I am sure that once the dust has settled a fresh approach will succeed.
Returning now to the nature of our limestone in Valletta, it is interesting that the danger of excavations causing problems was well understood in the 16th century. Laparelli was very critical of Bartolomeo Lanci’s 1562 project for ‘Valletta’ inter alia because Lanci proposed to excavate gun emplacements in solid rock in the flanks of his bastions. Laparelli explained that the nature of the rock on the Xiberras peninsula was such that there was a danger of the rock around the emplacements cracking slipping. I would be happy to post a translation of the relevant text. [Daphne – Please do.] Of course Laparelli had in mind vibrations caused by cannon fire and cannon balls (rather than mechanical drills and the feet of thousands of tourists)!
A report of the 1590s relates that Cassar himself was extremely concerned that the weight of the masonry and rubble on the bastion of SS Peter & Paul (the Upper Barracca) could cause the bed rock below to collapse because it was full of caves. In fact Laparelli built the bastion on two levels, (the lower level in now the the Saluting Battery) partly for this reason – to reduce the weight placed on a less than solid bedrock.
Many thoughts on this one.
We just want to live in a time capsule; “What I do not know/what was not available in my day, is probably too new-fangled for me to keep up with and so the easiest thing is to shoot it down.”
It is true that building contractors are not the most meticulous of workers, but then, does the Building Industry Consultative Council (BICC) want to take on the responsibilty of issuing AND ENFORCING building regulations and licences for contractors and architects? The last I heard they were trying to fob this off on the MEPA too… mela l-MEPA mhux mostru biz-zejjed? do we have to load it more?
Valletta – 2018 European Cultural City
1. The opera house site still in shambles.
2. The tapestries at the cathedral are still displayed in a tiny and minuscule corridor (already needing some repairs).
3. Fort St. Elmo is still in a disastrous state. Other ceilings have collapsed.
4. Parliament is still housed in the presidential palace, and the armoury (maybe one of the finest in the world), can only be seen by a few daily if the president or parliamentarians have no commitments in the palace.
5. Horses continue to drop their manure in the streets.
6. The Upper Barakka Gardens (Lower Part) declared the best musuem/attraction in the Med [Daphne – Please explain.]
7. The garage door is still there, but it has been widened by a few inches on both sides to let in the bigger carnival floats in. [Daphne – Please explain.]
8. Public transport is inadequate, but the fumes the buses produce can be seen from the Granaries in Floriana.
9. A number of granaries were damaged a few months earlier after a big mass meeting held to celebrate the electoral victory, and are now inaccessible.
I hope I’m wrong, and this country starts NOW (we are already late) working on this.
Daphne,
I am happy to point out that the Valletta terrain is already full of tunnels, wells, reservoirs, sewers and war shelters. And as far as I know not a single stone was misplaced because all of this
http://www.heartofmalta.com/en/malta/guide/what-lies-beneath-valletta.aspx
There is an Intricate web of tunnels under Valletta, but very few people know about them, and much fewer have actually seen them. According to research carried out by architect Edward Said, underneath the capital city lies its lifeline -a vast maze of wells and reservoirs, sewers and war shelters.
The history of the maze under Valletta goes back centuries. The importance of an underground water system was recognised when Grand Master La Valette started building the capital. After all, a city without water is vulnerable, especially when the need might arise to close it off in case of attacks.
At the time, building rules stipulated that each house had to have a basement and a reservoir, using the stone dug from beneath. Houses also had to have an underground connection for sewage, with the Knights also building a number of public reservoirs underneath public spaces.
But what really made underground Valletta what it is today was World War II. Said points out that when war broke out there was a rush to excavate air raid shelters. Civil engineers and architects surveyed all the existing underground spaces and connected them. Most of them are stuck in a time warp and going inside shelters is like going back in time.
Unfortunately there is no scheduled access to the tunnels, which are the responsibility of the Valletta Rehabilitation Project -and at the moment there are no plans to open them up for the public. However, during the large activities organised in the city, such as Notte Bianca held on October 6, tours of the tunnels are organised. Casa Rocca Piccola in Republic Street offers a glimpse into what lies beneath the city. Its bomb shelter (that also served as a church during World War II) is connected to the city’s tunnels and is open to the public.
This article is by far the most convincing one. I have shown it to a few friends who were up to now thinking that Astrid Vella was right to screw up this project. They were literally lost for words when they read it and when I asked them directly what they are thinking now, again they remain dumbfounded.
[Daphne – It came from somebody who is one of Malta’s most respected ‘authorities’ in the field of history and heritage. But unfortunately, there is no way he can take a public position on this project. More’s the pity, because he is precisely the person Astrid’s fans most admire, and they would take his word over hers any day.]
Sure. But then they don’t have Caqnus, radio-controlled MEPAs and crater-roads in Manhattan, do they?
[Daphne – Very amusing. We’re either saying no excavation is possible beneath the square. Or we’re saying that we don’t trust the foundation’s architectural team to do the job well. The two are entirely separate issues.]
Apart from the FAA business. Fellini explores this link between cities, memory, and excavations in his brilliant “Roma”.
[Daphne – Yes, I loved that.]
No use crying over spilt milk. Besides, as you pointed out, this was not about the proposed excavation work but all about personal politics and animosity between an unelected political puppetmeister and an M.P. with a grudge to bear in a government with a one seat majority. Besides one does not even have to go to Rome or far away (to you) New York. Has nobody visited the extensive shelters excavated during the Second World War which were built right under the mighty bastions, palaces and streets of Birgu and Valletta?
[Daphne – You know, you and others should hold easy on the ‘unelected politician’ bit. You seem to forget – conveniently – that the leader of the opposition doesn’t has a vote to his name. He is unelected, and most conspicuously so, having had to beg a seat off Manwel Cuschieri’s brother.]
And don’t forget the Athens underground…..
Actually throughout Valletta there is a large number of wells, reservoirs, basements, extensive underground passages that are kilometres long … And inside St John’s itself there are two crypts – the Bartolott Crypt under the Oratory is very deep and quite large while the Grand Masters Crypt under the main altar is smaller. In front of the Co-Cathedral there are two reservoirs and adjacent to the Co-Cathedral in front of the Law Courts there is a huge reservoir which everyone could see exposed some years ago. Large car parks are dug below most hotels and most towers are built on large car parks in Malta. And, remember, the Foundation never intended to dig UNDER St John’s as a certain Mrs Vella led so many thousands to believe and as a certain Dr still states on the front page of FAA’s, that is Mrs Vella’s, website.
@ Daphne. I’m cool with the fact that Richard Cachia Caruana is unelected. The fact is that like his former U.S. counterpart, Karl Rove, he is unelected. No if and or but about it. That does not detract from his political talents or abilities. See 1992, 1998, 2003, 2008 election victories for evidence of his usefulness. It does make him less accountable though and as a result less controllable.
[Daphne – As a public officer, an employee of the state, and an ambassador, he is 100% accountable, legally and otherwise – unlike, say, Mrs Vella. The point I wish to underscore most vehemently is that those on the MLPAD bandwagon who like to say that he is ‘unelected’ – as though every state employee must be elected, for God’s sake, have had the carpet whipped out from under their feet by a famously unelected leader of the opposition, who is trying to run the country from a seat on the opposition benches begged off Manwel Cuschieri’s brother. There’s too much tunnel vision around, isn’t there? Better an unelected supremely capable and focussed person than an elected incompetent – or worse, as in the case of Muscat, somebody who is both unelected AND incompetent.]
Your article reminded me of Athens, which built its underground network prior to the 2004 Olympic games. The tunnels literally slice through ancient Athenian life, buried under the modern-day city. The sides of the tunnels are cased in glass in most areas, and as you ride on the carriages you literally slice through houses, temples, graves, and roads (with ancient potholes stuffed with hay!) buried layers deep. Artefacts were left largely in situ sticking out of the walls of the tunnels, and replicas were left of some of the more impressive originals that were taken to the Athens Museum.
It was a wonderful example of how to make a feature of something that had long been forgotten, and deemed impossible to showcase.
[Daphne – It’s all down to ignorance. Many people in Malta believe, because this is what they were led to believe and because they have been exposed to little else, that ‘imkien fid-dinja hemm daqstant storja f’post zghir daqs kemm hawn Malta.’ Nowadays, I just smile politely. I’m so bored of chatting with morons. It sometimes feels as though I’ll go to my grave having the same conversation with the same empty vessels. In the past, I used to bring up Rome (eeehhhhhh! but they only have the Colisseum!) and Athens (eeeeehhhhhh! but they only have that, aw, what’s it called, on the hill…) and now I just zone it all out.]
And can somebody imagine/feel the tremendous vibrations that rise from the underground tubes to the surface in major cities in Europe throughout the day and night without … destroying any church, tower or monument above them? One wonders why very experienced architects on the government side spoke against the project! They know better …
This comes to you from the city that gave us the Velvet Underground: I can’t see what the fuss is all about. 24/7 service on most lines, dozens of packed trains thundering along, plus constant renovation and expansion works. Never heard of any structural damage to buildings. The only problem with the NYC subway is flooding in some areas when there’s a heavy downpour, but I don’t think this risk was brought up in the case of the aborted project.
[Daphne – Wouldn’t it be fabulously entertaining if somebody came up with an underground train project for Malta, just for the sheer delight of observing the fall-out?]
@Roger
A couple of points
1. Your arguments make the best arguments to keep the legal process going i.e. having a full EIA together with real expert reports and then leave in the hands of the real experts to decide.
2. As this was an EU structural fund project, it had to have strict date of commencement and date of termination, and the latter could not be beyond 31st December 2013(so at most 4 years) otherwise the funds would be lost.
Daphne – “It’s all down to ignorance. Many people in Malta believe, because this is what they were led to believe and because they have been exposed to little else, that ‘imkien fid-dinja hemm daqstant storja f’post zghir daqs kemm hawn Malta”.
Daphne, do not the respective authorities make use of the perception, which you describe above, as a main marketing message in the tourism field?
[Daphne – Yes, and they are silly to do it.]
Dear Daphne
While thanking you for the correction, here is my explanation on the 6th point
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090127/local/barrakka-gardens-war-rooms-to-be-turned-into-heritage-park/
on the 7th point there is nothing to explain. I’m refering to Valletta’s Main Gate/Door – call it whatever you like
I hope this correction is clear enough, and that my negative predictions are ALL wrong, and that my only positive prediction is more than right
@Daphne. Oh, and I almost forgot about Astrid Vella. I think we all recognize that she is a pawn, and we all know what happens to those if they move out of their allotted safe square on the political chess board. For now, she is useful to some people. There will come a time when the big players will sweep her off the board.
“7. The garage door is still there, but it has been widened by a few inches on both sides to let in the bigger carnival floats in.”
I’d assume that he’s referring to City Gate.
Roger Vella Bonavita: “Of course Laparelli had in mind vibrations caused by cannon fire and cannon balls (rather than mechanical drills and the feet of thousands of tourists)!”
He was also too early in history to experience the bombing raids in WWII and to examine their effects. Several people have pointed out that the ground beneath St John’s square is filled with rubble and that the buildings that stood there were bombed down. How did that affect the structure of the cathedral building?
[Daphne – It wasn’t just some of the buildings in front of the cathedral that were hit, but the buildings that covered part of what is now being considered ‘the churchyard’. ]
@Daphne : “Athens (eeeeehhhhhh! but they only have that, aw, what’s it called, on the hill…)” – believe it or not … I have heard it called the Apocalypse
Have a look at this site… from the land of Real Earthquakes and little geisha girls.
http://resources.alibaba.com/topic/289609/World_s_Longest_Tunnel_.htm
Just a reminder – St John’s Cathedral survived :
1) an explosion of a 1000kg bomb or mine during the blitz which fell in Merchants’ Street where the HSBC head office now stands; it also demolished part of the Royal Hotel (G. Muscat Drapery) and the shops which were situated where the ‘cemetery’ now stands;
2) the daily mid-day dynamite blasts when the Red China Dock was being excavated; the victim of these blasts was the fresco ceiling of the church of Our Lady of Victories;
3) the recent digging with a small JCB of a tunnel for a shop (Petrolea) 100m away from the cathedral.
@John Schembri
I don’t think churches were chosen as mission targets by the German commanders when planning bombing runs to Malta. Even so, it was pure luck that the bomb you mentioned didn’t smash the cathedral. No building can withstand the force of either man, machine or natural event.
The proposed extension would have been a ‘daghwa fahxija’ in architectural terms. Just like that pyramid contraption built in the middle of the Louvre, standing like a zit in the middle of a such a beautiful renaissance building. When will we ever learn that modern does not mix with ancient? The ancient’s built things to last. We do not. We build like so, so that 20 years later we can hire a ‘kuntrattur’ to tear it down and build a bigger monstrosity out of an existing monstrosity.
John Meilak: What qualifies renaissance as ‘ancient’?
The comparison between Richard Cachia Caruana and Karl Rove is excellent. Sums up the right wing, conservative fanaticism of 90 per cent who post on this blog.
[Daphne – Just because somebody comes from a smart background and has no chip on his or her shoulder, Gerald, it doesn’t follow that he or she is a right-wing conservative fascist with blue eyes.]
@ John Meilak : I am sure it was a big bomb. I am stating facts.
I want my country to be run as it should from parliament not from around a Sliema apartment kitchen-table. [Daphne – Unfortunately, John, that was precisely what happened – it was decided by parliament, indirectly if not directly. I think what you meant to say is that you want the correct institutions to take the decisions. It’s not always parliament that’s the decision-making body.]
I don’t have an opinion about the shape or form of this proposed museum.But I believe that there are solutions to these problems.
All I know is that there are various architectural styles from various periods in Valletta: Victorian (the covered market), neo-classical(Law courts), neo-Gothic (St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral) and Fascist (incomplete City Gate).
‘Daghwa b’Alla fil-knisja’ is the disproportionately-sized dome of Tal-Karmnu Church and its bad workmanship (some parts of this oval dome are straight).
Yes, Daphne – that’s what I meant, “the right institutions”, even though the buck stops at the PM’s desk.
Someone in the 17th century said that if in Malta one tries to light up a candle, in no time there will be a hundred people blowing to put it out.
[Daphne – Is that an urban legend, or do you have the source?]
Daphne, well they already did and the report showed that for it to be feasible we need to have a ‘commuter’ population of at least 2.6 million. (unfortunately Austin Gatt was right about this)
Corinne Vella, John Meilak probably mixed up the renaissance with the classical period (ancient civilisation)…We need a school of thinking, not a palace.
@Corinne
Renaissance is the resurgence and rediscovery of the knowledge and art of the ancients whilst improving on it. We have sunk back into a cultural dark age. Especially here in Malta.
We must achieve a civilisation the equivalent of the Roman Empire but with the benefit of technology (i.e. no need of slavery to do everyday tasks).
[Daphne – I’m just guessing wildly here. Are you one of Norman Lowell’s boys?]
I read it somewhere. Maybe someone will help. I think it was a priest who said it.
@Gerald. I wouldn’t know Richard Cachia Caruana if I fell over him in the street but I doubt he is a right wing fascist. I was comparing him to Karl Rove as a back handed compliment. I admire his innate political instincts – he is the consummate political chess player. He has all the makings of a successful trial lawyer – he knows his audience, he knows how to target his message, he chooses the right political moment to act and he knows how to move his pawns around the political chess board from the shadows. Most important of all he thinks five steps ahead of his opponent. Those sort of people aren’t born every day.
Thanks Daphne,
Here is Laparelli’s text of early 1566. Of course I do not present it as a solid argument against the tunnel proposed for St John’s but it is an interesting footnote so to speak. Given public interest in the issue and the decision to restore the fortifications of Valletta I may ask the editor of The Malta Independent on Sunday to publish my contribution to your blog if that’s ok with you. [Daphne – Fine with me. I work with them, after all.]
“The scheme (Lanci’s) calls for casemates cut into solid rock with their embrasures at ditch level (i.e., low down on the floor of the ditch). These casemates, each 60 palmi long, 28 palmi wide and 22 palmi high at the vault, are to be located in the flanks of the bastions. Some believe they are conceived as detached works however in fact they are placed within the flanks but at ditch level – i.e., within the walls. In my opinion if a solid ‘slice’ of rock is left, as specified, to form the outer wall of this casemate, it cannot support itself. Rather than this free standing (slice of) rock, there should be a masonry wall between the interior of the casemate and the ditch outside for it has to support the roof of the casemate and the rest of the wall above too. I am saying it will not support itself because there are flaws in all rocks of all types: marble, travertine, or any other common stone; be they brittle, very hard, soft (like chalk), or whatever. In short, since the density of rock is not consistent it tends to flake and crumble. There are land slides and rock falls on high ground even when no one has interfered with it or quarried there. Rocks will flake and crumble even more if cut as is proposed in this scheme. Thus these casemates will be expensive to build and liable to collapse.”
John Meilak: “We must achieve a civilisation the equivalent of the Roman Empire”
Well, we’re halfway there already. The place is overun with circus animals. Now all we need is an arena and a few tridents and that will keep the people happy.
As to the rest of your pipe dream, refer to Graham C’s comment above – the last nine words, that is.