My God, she’s still at it
A new form of Chinese torture: having Astrid squeak at you from dawn to dusk.
Here’s Astrid Vella, on timesofmalta.com’s comments-board, beneath the story about funding for the Renzo Piano Valletta project:
The sad thing is that so much of this desperate need for funding was avoidable.
The Venetian architect Giovanni Trevisan offered us a free theatre, a modern re-interpretation of the classical Royal Opera House, but those in authority, in their wisdom, turned it down, a decision that shall be mentioned for generations just like the refusal of the German offer is mentioned to this day.
Parliament could have been accommodated in a number of beautiful buildings at a fraction of the cost.
I am sure that Piano’s structure will please many, but it begs the question “Would it not have been more suited to a contemporary context than a historic Citadel? Besides the very minor detail that granting the permit infringed the law which states that Parliament and the ministries are to be accommodated in the palaces and auberges of Valletta, as even the MEPA Appeals Tribunal has admitted
Of course this is not about accommodating a parliament but about creating a monument to be remembered by. Valletta is a monument in itself, do we need competition within its walls?
Of course there are those who will mention the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, overlooking the fact that Bilbao was a failing industrial centre, unlike Valletta which already draws tourists through being a World Heritage site.
Readers will be interested to read more about Starchitects:
“architecture is the physical manifestation of a particular notion of order and, when it is commissioned by the state, it represents the clearest of all messages about how that state is attempting to be perceived. It is politics and, often, propaganda made concrete.” ie: by placing the seat of politics at the entrance to the capital city, a symbol of power and control over its people?
“Part of the attraction of building in undemocratic countries is that they are easy to build for. They commission. They build. They do not let wildlife, local culture, people’s houses or the niceties of planning systems get in the way of their vision.” Does this sound familiar?
Please note that the above quotes are not taken from The Guardian, but from the Financial Times, the bastion of conservatism.
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Amateurish, nonsensical arguments made with utter conviction – no wonder Super One loves her.
“The need for funding was unavoidable”? Why, because there are free projects like there are free lunches?
“Giovanni Trevisan”? For heaven’s sake. Turi kemm taf.
“a free theatre”? Seriously?
“A decision that shall be mentioned for generations”? Almost nobody knows about that spurious offer even now, or cares, let alone in 2121.
Some people think that turning down “the German offer” was the wise thing to do. One has one’s pride. Malta has no tradition of blood-money.
“Parliament could have been accommodated in a number of beautiful buildings”? Really? Which ones and how? Or maybe Mrs Vella doesn’t actually understand that all MPs have to sit in the same room preferably at the same time, and with offices in the same building.
“The Piano project would have been more suited to a contemporary context than a historic citadel”? All citadels are historic, and if they are not constantly revived, they become static and die, visited only to be stared at, like Mdina. Valletta cannot be like Mdina, unless Mrs Vella wishes to have it cease to be a centre of commerce and transactions in public life, a problem that it is facing already, hence the pressing need for regeneration.
“Valletta is a monument in itself; do we need competition within its walls?” For crying out loud, woman. Get a grip on yourself.
As for the rest, I must restrain myself. Can’t have her throwing another tantrum and going to court dressed up as the martyred Joan of Arc in black up to her chin with a pale face and that awful dyed red hair, carrying a pile of print-outs an inch thick, with all of mean Daphne’s horribly cruel comments about Miss Squeaky underlined in pencil.
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Reply to oldtimer Click here to cancel reply
She’l thqueam and thqueam till she’s thick, and she’ll do it, you know…
Or maybe till there is a Labour government?
Oh, I’d just love to see her mixing with the chavs. The question is, which of them would last longest?
Hasn’t she got a real job that makes her feel useful and fullfilled?
[Daphne – No. She belongs to that generation of women who don’t see any point in getting a job if they can live off their husband. This, I hasten to add, is different to that generation of women who wanted to get involved with the world of work, but who were held back by society, their families and ‘tradition’.]
No wonder she is forever calling out for a fresh crusade with every new season.
Why does she not go to ETC and retrain in something useful to keep herself busy?
You’re way off the mark here, Daph. “that generation of women” you refer to who live off their husbands do bugger-all except sip coffee at Giorgio’s. Astrid was perfectly capable and qualified enough to have a career. She did not snare herself a rich hubby to “live off”. With money not a problem, she dedicated herself to a cause. You can agree/disagree with whether the cause is valid and with how the FAA set about it, but to give the impression that she’s a manipulating sponger is a bit pathetic of you.
[Daphne – Look, Chris, I know you two are friends, but please. Being perfectly capable of finding a job and not wanting to find a job are two different things. Even in my age-group (and there was a shift inthinking between Astrid’s contemporaries and mine) there are still many women who don’t work despite being more than adequately qualified to do so (though years out of the job market has reduced their employability somewhat). You yourself, sadly, reflect that same attitude that ‘if money is not a problem’ then women ‘need not’ work. Women don’t work for money necessarily, Chris. It’s a matter of pride, dignity and self-respect. In Italy, all women work and take pride in it, even the wives of millionaires and mega industrialists. In Malta, if you have enough to live on, the woman doesn’t bother. Because work = money, nothing more. And I hate to point this out, but it is perfectly possible to hold down a job or a career AND campaign for a cause. Surely it doesn’t take all her time and energy to write internet comments and run through some documents. What would she do if she had my workload? Hang herself?]
I tell you one thing, I could do with a couple of Astrids helping the Deaf Association.
[Daphne – You would get neither her nor the support of the chattering classes, because deafness isn’t as sexy as pretending to be liberal (while all the while being reactionary and not aware of it) and mouthing off about ‘the environment’. I sympathise because I know of other causes with the same problem of getting heard. But don’t mistake getting heard for getting results. Astrid actually provokes physical and psychological negative reactions in the people she is meant to be lobbying and has even alienated other environment groups. She is exactly what a lobbyist should NOT be.]
“Amateurish, nonsensical arguments .” I would also add stupid.
Can Ms. Vella explain why the Maltese government should trust Trevisan and accept his offer?
Sometimes, Ms. Vella’s declarations are so downright stupid that I suspect FAA receives a donation in return. There might be other explanations, of course.
Is she an honorary member of Labour’s Fondazzjoni Idejat?
It is very obvious that she has been celibate for a very long time, which explains her behaviour, choice of hair colour, and squeaky voice.
[Daphne – I don’t think that’s at all fair. After all, people say the same of Saviour Balzan, but he DID produce a baby, even though he denied it vehemently at first.]
http://www.caravaggio.com/projects/VOH/
The Valletta Opera House site could look like this.
I googled Giovanni Trevisan and one of the sites has the above declaration. He must be an intimate friend of Astrid Vella because like her, his statements are very dogmatic.
I have the feeling that Trevisan does not like Renzo Piano and this may be the result of professional envy and lack of success.
That site seems to be the only site that mentions this Trevisan – the rest is completely unknown.
I’m not an architect, but having been to Bilbao two times , all I can say is that in the city of Bilbao there is a variety architectural styles like in our city, and the Guggenheim Museum which is by the river adds colour to the city.
I have seen Santiago Calatrava’s bridge and other modern bridges in Seville. By Astrid’s standards these bridges should have been stone arched bridges like the Roman one in Merida.
I read about the ‘builder’ Giovanni Trevisan and he seems to say that ‘Gonzi’ should have accepted his ‘status quo’ populist concept of the project.
This is like saying that I want to build a modern house with a big garden with a driveand an architect /builder comes along and says that if I accept his baroque house with a big cellar and arches all over the place, he will do it for free.
Astrid is missing the main argument: the government’s brief was to relocate parliament to an appropriate functional contemporary building, make the Grandmaster’s Palace the main attraction of Valletta, put to good use Barry’s dilapidated Theatre Royal, and have a decent entrance to a walled city.
Regarding the Starchitects quotation, I like the removal of the ’wildlife’ part from Pjazza Helsien: I mean the pot-belly taxi drivers, the parking area, the hawkers, and the urine marks on the walls in every corner around this big space.
The quotation from the FT fits what Josef Stalin did in Königsberg now known as Kaliningrad. After ‘liberating’ Königsberg from the Germans, Stalin ordered the total demolition with dynamite of the partially demolished Medieval Teutonic castle to build a concrete monster instead, with the name of “The people’s building”.
When I was there some years ago the massive building was still unoccupied.
On a smaller scale here in Malta we had the covering with a ‘billboard’ in Arabic of the British coat-of-arms over the Main Guard lodge right in front of the Presidential Palace. That would befit the Financial Times quotation Astrid, not the Piano project.
I do not know why she is being given such exposure. This is what she is after, to fill some void in her life.
She might fit with Super One lot for the time being, but I am sure she will also be dumped after the election, same as with all who are allowing themselves to be used.
If she is not given this exposure, she will reach for the megaphone.
Perhaps her misgivings are due to her poor understanding of what parliament represents. She seems to think parliament represents the state and that positioning the building at the gate of the capital city, symbolises control by the state over the people and not control OF the state BY its people.
“Parliament could have been accommodated in a number of beautiful buildings at a fraction of the cost”
This is 1-cent wisdom that makes conservation specialists shiver to the bone.
To her credit she is consistent in this idiocy – I remember her suggesting the same ridiculous idea of spreading the artefacts of St. John Cathedral around Valletta in such buildings.
Does she have any vested interest in some of these buildings? They would, of course, have to be bought by the state at huge expense, from their private owners.
Indeed, does she have vested interests? Some interesting patterns are emerging lately regarding her choice of lobbying.
She’s still silent on Joseph’s ‘controversial decisions’ for Gozo.
Is she advocating bringing wildlife into Valletta? I can assure her that enough of that drifts into the city (or lives there) already.
Or maybe she’s talking about the eviction of the pigeons from Misrah il-Helsien?
I was under the impression that the Piano project is well on its way – or am I wrong? I suppose Astrid wants to be heard, from time to time lest we forget all about her
Ms Vella siad: “The sad thing is that so much of this desperate need for funding was avoidable. The Venetian architect Giovanni Trevisan offered us a free theatre,……”
Apart from the specific proposals by Trevisan, the real question is; why should Trevisan fork out x millions of euros to fund the ‘free theatre’? What was he expecting back in return?
This is the most important site in Valletta and in Malta and Ms. Vella wanted to shift control over the site from the Maltese government to an unknown entity.
Is this person serious?
Did Trevisan actually offer to pay for the building of the theatre? My impression was that he offered for free was only the architectural design (the plans).
[Daphne – Exactly. A sketch.]
Valletta is NOT a historic citadel. It is the capital city of a sovereign state.
It is the place where people congregate everyday to work, shop, visit, move the state forward.
What Astrid will never understand is context. Piano did not make a gate, because Valletta deserves an entrance, not a gate.
Function is the method of society, as it has always been. Replicating the ‘gate’ – which one, she doesn’t say – is akin to fossilising the city, killing it.
Florentines would describe her as ‘pissera’, prim and proper with a Puritan sense of aesthetics, a bit like those Bostonian spinsters who think that Italy should remain a postcard.
Architects are themselves responsible for letting this pipsqueak hog the public space. I suppose they find it too daunting to take her on.
Not to put on my Vauban anorak [surely “frilly velvet coat” Ed.] or anything, but Valletta is not a citadel. It is a city with a fortified enceinte and a camp retranché (Floriana). The citadel, if anything, would be Fort St Elmo.
Now that the Piano project (love it or hate it) is well under way, why re-hash the controversy Ms Vella?
Ms Vella does not deserve all this criticism.
I know of few persons who have worked so much for the protecting of our ‘ambient” even if it seems that all of those commenting here do not agree with her thoughts on the Piano project. Some of the insults are unpleasant.
Astrid has always been consistent in her, let’s us call them, “crusades” to save what little we still have worth protecting from the bulldozers that have already devastated most of our countryside and most of the beautiful buildings left to us by our forefathers.
Back to the Piano project, it is not only Astrid who does not agree with it, but I can assure you that if a survey had to be carried out, the result would be that most of the people who care and love our Valletta, do not approve of it.
There is so much to say about this, and it has been said so many times over and over again, that it is now useless, as it is now too late.
What should have been a monument to some of our politicos will be nothing but an eyesore which our children will put blame on our generation.
[Daphne – As if. Our children are already better educated than we are, Silvio. Their children will think of Astrid Vella’s arguments as straight out of another age, if they even hear of her at all.]
Really surprised. I would have thought that a person of your culture would support all those that fight to protect our environment and heritage.
[Daphne – I support serious people who know what they’re talking about. I have no respect for people who think that there are baroque houses in Sliema, dating back to the 18th century, and who cite as proof the ‘streets’ and ‘houses’ on an old map of Tigne Point, because they don’t know that forts had barracks in them.]
Here we are not talking about the person but on her commitment.
I am sure that our grandchildren will remember people like Astrid, when they will still be enjoying Hondoq Ir-Rummien and other places that we managed to save for them.
[Daphne – No more than I ever look around me in some bay or valley and think ‘Wow, thank God grandpa and his generation saved this.’ Come on, Silvio. Each generation just accepts what it finds. I get upset when I look at the Sliema front because I remember what it was like before. My children don’t get upset because that’s the only way they know it.]
The issue here is not what she did or did not do. The issue is that Ms. Vella yet again shows her inability to base the position she takes on coherent logical arguments. In this instance, her two most stupid statements are:
“The Venetian architect Giovanni Trevisan offered us a free theatre, ..” and
“Parliament could have been accommodated in a number of beautiful buildings at a fraction of the cost.”
There were many issues where her arguments were illogical or based on information which was factually wrong. Yet people gave her the benefit of the doubt and believed her because of her persistence.
‘Valletta is a monument in itself, do we need competition within its walls?’
Is she saying we shouldn’t even consider leaving our mark? Even if it’s splendid enough to complement the rest?
Astrid Vellaneeds to visit Berlin, Milan, London, Barcellona and Paris to understand what a capital city, or one that is in itself a worthy contender, is about.
So according to her La Defense shouldn’t have been built as it competes with the Arc De Triomphe, the gherkin upsets St.Paul’s and Berlin’s crystal dome over the reichstag is a waste as Speer had already provided plans.
And New York should rebuild the twin towers, to preserve memory, whereas Calatrava’s plans for the new world trade center train station are a monumental offence to New Yorkers.
According to this woman we’ll never be up to her standards. I half expect her to propose making the ghonella compulsory dress code for Valletta.
She will have a serious problem in the near future, when all is finished. What will she do, avoid experiencing the place? She can’t be seen enjoying herself in the theatre for sure.
Do you recall the “Insalvaw Fond Ghadir” campaign by Alternattiva?
They saved it from being a private concession for the few hotels on Sliema’s Tower Road. Tony Nicholl was one who supported the takeover by the hotels.
[Daphne – Well, I obviously do because I lived there. Actually, the real salvation came in the form of a letter to The Times, written by Antoine Montanaro-Gauci, then in his 90s, who explained why it would be against the law in fact and in spirit. I don’t remember him ever being moved to comment, so when he did, Michael Refalo rethought the situation. He wasn’t an environmentalist by any measure. It was the spirit of the law which interested him.]
Wasn’t “Ix-Xaghara l-Hamra” saved from being a golf coarse, to become a nature trail?
[Daphne – Yes, by the unstinting efforts of Din L-Art Helwa, certainly not Astrid Vella, who alienates everybody except her own kind.]
On this one Silvio is right. I for one, for example can never accept the Verdala Hotel as part of the Mdina and Rabat landscape, and can never accept a golf coarse there.
[Daphne – It’s not up to you, though, is it. I don’t remember a time before the Verdala Hotel, so to me, it’s just as much a part of the skyline as Mdina and Rabat are. The golf course wouldn’t have bothered me either (speaking visually, not in terms of water consumption or take-up of agricultural land). Fields are just as unnatural and golf courses are nicer to look at than degraded agricultural land.]
I think this would interest Astrid
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=17927
Come on honey, go for it. Tell Angelik to stop the messing about Borg-in-Nadur.