Piano – a 'cheap' Maltese architect could have done the same
Published:
July 1, 2009 at 8:52am
timesofmalta.com Ronnie Gauci
“I never liked Piano’s appointment for this project, he is good when it comes to modern cities and glass buildings but then as I can see he’s an amateur when it comes to old ones like our Valletta. Tell me what innovations or new ideas did he come which any cheaply paid Maltese architect couldn’t have designed himself? He just eliminated the city gate and the opera house, designed a modern building side to side with St. James Cavalier, transformed the ditch into a garden and resurrected the idea of the lift we already had 30-40 years back. What a waste of money!”
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Please Daphne why reproduce such nonsense.
[Daphne – I think it’s fascinating. I also think it important to highlight salient examples of the The People’s voice, because there are those among us who are seriously suggesting that these are valid views.]
I can hear his friends shouting all together in the background: “Yes, ir-Ronnie!”
If I were a “cheaply paid Maltese architect” I’d take offence at the suggestion that Piano’s ideas are as bad as mine, rather than mine being as good as his.
Oh what a bloody idiot. Gonzi should have commissioned Ronnie Gauci rather than Piano – he seems a very good architect. It seems Malta is full of such imbeciles.
[Daphne – Careful, Mario, or you’ll put them in a fix. They’ll feel the urge to respond by insulting you about your prime minister Berlusconi, but that would force them to make comparisons favourable to Lawrence Gonzi, and they would rather impale themselves on Piano’s steel prongs than do that.]
Well this is similar to Leo Brincat’s assertion that the PL would perform a “public perception exercise” and then decide on this whether to go for, what type and where to place, alternative energy plants – obviously over-riding the experts’ opinion.
Lol Daphne did you see
Pia Micallef blog on Maltastilla
[Daphne – No. But she is 19. I shudder when I remember what I thought and said at that age. The ones I can’t get over are 39, 49, 59, and 69. At 79, you can be forgiven a mixture of nostalgia and antiquated views. Not everyone in their 70s is able, like Piano, to avoid fossilisation.]
Daphne, Berlusconi is not my PM (I have no political affiliations, politics in Italy is a farce). I am half Italian and half Maltese and I am married to a Maltese. I have great respect towards Piano because I worked on one of his projects in Italy and I am half Italian. I think this Piano thing is getting really political.
Yeahhhhh! I made it on Daphne’s blog!! :) Thanks Daphne for making me famous.
I still stand with what I wrote, the majesty of St. James Cavalier standing high above Valletta’s entrance will be covered by this huge modern building transforming city gate into another shady Strada Stretta, Burger King on one side and an exclusive building reserved for MP’s on the other. The dream of re-having our theatre has immediately vanished as that of seeing the city gate in all it’s glory. We paid millions and all we’ll gain are another Parliament and some theatres, things which Valletta has enough not to mention all the empty buildings and auberges. We also gained an elevator (hopefully it will not be transformed into a latrine like the present one), a Greek theatre like structure (which most of it is already in place, the ruins) and some trees and flowers. For all those millions spent I pretended something huge, something all the world would be expecting fantically it’s opening and which would make headline news on CNN.
@ Mario Carta, you seem like you’re Italian, like those morti di fame who come here buy just buy a bottle of water and a pizza each in a week and live on it, so how come can you call somebody idiot when you don’t understand s**t about Valletta? Would you like it if a Maltese arcitect would build something unrelated 20 metres from the Coliseum or in the middle of Piazza Navona? You’re the idiot here not me, you can not agree with my opinion but how dare you call somebody an idiot for voicing an opinion just because you worked with Piano?? You’re biased amico and so cannot be taken seriously.
[Daphne – Somebody told me that you work/ed in customs. There’s a discussion going on elsewhere on this website about the way customs officials stole money from people by holding their suitcases/them hostage when they came into Malta by sea or air. Would you care to join it and give us your views?]
“You’re biased amico and cannot be taken seriously”
The corollary being, I imagine, that Ronnie Gauci can be taken seriously despite his childish writing.
Headline news on CNN is not based on how much money is spent and the world is not waiting to see what Malta is going to do about Valletta. There’s a whole lot more happening out there. That why it is called the world, though you seem to think (think? do you, really?) that this is it.
This Valletta project will end up like the present City Gate mark my words, when it was being built nobody uttered a word against it but after 10 years everybody started to consider it as a huge mistake.
I meet people every day who really didn’t like most of Piano’s ideas, as also shown on online polls, are they criminals or retarded just because they don’t share your opinion?
[Daphne – I don’t know why you are your mates believe that these things are a matter of opinion. They’re not.]
Many were so desperate for something to be done there that are ready to accept almost everything. Many wanted to see our beloved teatru again [Daphne – ‘Our beloved teatru’? It went down in 1943. The only people who remember it standing are pushing 80 or older, and I’d say there are only a couple of hundred people still alive who actually went to a performance there, if that.] now are ready to accept a dozen columns and some seats instead. Many wanted a wonderful square with fountains and monuments upon entering Valletta with the newly built theatre in the background but all Piano is giving them is an extension of Republic Street with all its crowds and panic as Freedom Square will cease to exist, am I crazy in stating so?
[Daphne – Ronnie, don’t tempt me.]
I keep work related issues at home I’m sorry so will not comment any further, all I will say is that records tell it all, the Customs Department is among the most sucessful organizations in Malta when it comes to bring wrongdoers to justice so please don’t believe such nonsense people out there say to undermine this work. If somebody’s luggage was held there must be a valid reason. We’re in the EU and people are not stupid, they know where to go, complain and even make names, locally or abroad, we do not live under a regime anymore.
I’m curious though about who gave you my whereabouts, I never write anything work-related.
Daphne, I wanted the entrance to Valletta to be a wonderful square surrounded by dozens of establishments in which people from all cultures, especially Europeans, could mix up and give life again to the city, day and night, like in almost all European countries after all. When Piano will finish his works Valletta will still be dead as it is right now and the ditch will become a ‘mecca’ for junkies, vandals and Africans. [Daphne – So, people from all cultures but expressly no Africans, right?] Love it or hate it Freedom Square is one of the two main squares in Valletta, where visitors find space where to breathe from the congestion there is in all other streets as Valletta is synonymous with narrow streets, now we decided to build this wonderful piazza up and extend Republic Street almost to the bus terminus.
[Daphne – Freedom Square is a place to breathe? You have got to be joking.]
This is my opinion. I’m no architect, but I think I have the right to express myself as I’m Maltese. I visit Valletta regularly, I talk to people and so I might know better than Piano what Valletta needs to start to wake up from its death. Piano will come, get the money and go back to Italy, we and generations to come will have to live with his works for centuries to come.
[Daphne – “I might know better than Piano”….Ronnie, I give up.]
[Daphne – So, people from all cultures but expressly no Africans, right?
Africans are welcome anytime, obviously the ones who frequent the area right now aren’t. Please don’t turn the conversation into one about racism. You know what I’m talking about and deep down I know we agree.
[Daphne – Actually, we don’t. I have greater objections to the sort of Maltese who troop up and down Republic Street every morning than I do to Africans of whatever sort. Most Africans I see here appear to be naturally elegant, whatever they’re wearing.]