Chris Briffa on market plans: “Culturally, we are still living in the Dark Ages”
Published:
February 3, 2015 at 2:13pm
In today’s print edition of Times of Malta:
28 Comments Comment
“Too good to be true” says it all.
I share the pain.
Me too
There we go. All the nationalist barbarians who maligned Piano ghax barrani should take note.
Chris Briffa is arguably Malta’s most gifted, innovative, intelligent, artistic architect. He endorses Piano and isn’t so conceited as to think that he should have been asked to design the project.
He’s also one who won’t grow into your typical firm chasing after every project to keep it going.
And that’s good design.
Arguably is the imperative word here. I find his work extremely derivative and soulless. All style and no substance, although to be fair the same can be said for most architects.
As for Piano’s work, well it did the job it is meant to do, and he has the genius to reinterpret old lines, but is it a signature building? Not too sure about that.
Piano’s is not just a “building”
Amen
He’s one to talk. Giving us that horrendous carbuncle at the entrance to Valletta. A cheerless bunch of grey slabs, it’s back to both the war monument and the drivers who make up the majority of the people who will ‘appreciate’ it, obstructing the very monument it is supposed to celebrate, totally out of sync with its surroundings, and then, cherry on cake, marking out the space from where to appreciate it, because, of course, sculpture is a one dimensional object.
That’s not a fair assessment. You should look at his entire portfolio. Generally, it is quite impressive.
Let us say that I beg to differ. From were I am it is a crossing grey monument, bombastic, if not fascistic. It is dispiriting and joyless. It actually tells you keep away.
See me only from a distance.
And what artist in his right mind would plan a work which cannot be seen by most of the people who pass it by?
So that was him, was it? Ghastly. Looks like the props from a school play.
Just say you do not like Piano’s project and let others who appreciate it do so in peace.
The problem with Chris Briffa’s V18 monument is that it is essentially a 2D monument exploded into 3D.
It is very innovative, but unfortunately fails in that particular context because it can be appreciated from one viewpoint only, which point is probably the most uninteresting.
The 2D element of the monument renders it extremely ugly from other viewpoints, and with the bastion salient behind it and the war memorial in front of it, it had too much going on around it to be able to compete in any way.
I agree.
Chris, every time I go to Rome, and I have gone there quite a few times, I go to a particular spot in St Peter’s Square from where you have the most astonishing view of the basilica and the colonnade.
Maybe you consider even Michelangelo or Bernini as lifeless, ordinary and plain architects.
The creators of that architectural marvel, still admired by millions all over the world, lived much closer to the Dark Ages but they had a mind full of light and vision. And I strongly believe that their works and inspiration will still be there to be admired long after a certain Chris and his strange architectural ideas are gone and completely forgotten.
And in years to come, Renzo Piano’s masterpiece for the entrance to Valletta will appear in international brochures and press when you can no longer pass such silly remarks to publicise your lack of an aesthetic sense.
Chris was referring to the “V18” monument just off the bus station. I agree with Chris – it’s hideous.
My sincere apologies to Chris for misunderstanding his post and thanks to Baxxter for putting me right.
My only excuse for the error is that my mind was still stunned and muddled up after listening to Zaren tal-Ajkla on radio speaking so stupidly and irrationally about the Piano project.
I reacted without thinking because I had no idea then who this Zaren was.
Now that I know something about him, I realize it would have been better to ignore him.
I apologize to Chris again.
Beside the fact that they had to chop some of those pine trees to make space.
Beside the fact that the area was cluttered up with monuments way before some genius thought to plop a “mafkar” for V18.
You have the cenotaph, two RMA plinths, the RAF monument and Dun Karm all within a 50-metre radius. You have a massive open carpark that’s tangle of cars, concrete, service stations, pipes and signs, ten metres away. You have a congested bus station to the left.
And a very busy road full of noisy traffic to the right. The backdrop to the monument is not a smooth surface or a wide vista, but a jumble of vehicles.
All in all, the worst spot ever. It would make even the most beautiful of sculptures look out of place.
That V18 monument (it’s not an installation – that would imply temporary) is but an example of horror vacui.
Labour the verschlimmbessern experts.
There you go, architecture as space to experience. But no, what cannot be matter of comprehension is absence of mass dripping with overwrought meaning.
Guess which country has a prediliction for comfort food Chris.
‘In the same way as Cikku l-poplu’s need to fill the house with clutter’.
Painful metaphor, the nation’s emotional void must be filled, thus the vote swapping exercise continue.
Whoever thought the arts and sciences weren’t political method take a step back.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150203/local/regularisation-of-building-obscenities-unacceptable-simon-busuttil.554619
Laiviera insists it’s Busuttil jumping onto a bandwagon.
I thought that was Muscat’s unprecedented burokrazija zejda majority.
One must ask what happens to those who’ve had the value of their property halved when some bright spark took to ‘injecting life’ into the neighbourhood.
Nowhere’s safe. Unless you’re a tree.
Could not agree more with my namesake.
These so-called market plans are clearly a pre-electoral deal done with the monti hawkers, one of the many successful vote winning pacts.
The government will have to really come up with some story to have the hawkers accept a U turn. Something tells me they will.
Skont Twanny Zahra, dan il-perit qal xkora dagha.
Briffa f’hiex jifhem? We’ll consult tal-Monti instead, and while we’re at it offer Antonio Belvedere a job selling frilly panties.
As for the so-called grey slabs, well I pass that every day and happen to like it. Takes all sorts.
Chris Briffa, the architect, states that ‘Cikku l-poplu needs to fill up his house with junk’ but that’s only part of the story.
Unfortunately filling spaces up to the brim seems to reside within the Maltese genetic makeup. It is really a sign of stinginess and the need to squeeze something completely dry and beyond the last drop.
It is what many people think is value for money and it is not restricted to architecture nor is it limited to a specific class of people.
History teaches us that the most influential and successful civilizations did not thrive on the value for money concept but rather on the value of splendour.
Regrettably, yes, culturally we are still in the Dark Ages and Chris Briffa’s V18 installation does not lighten it by one femtowatt.
What is he saying that normal people don’t already know?
“The middle Ages” are a poor comparison. This wasn’t just the era of obscurantism. It was the time when cathedrals were built, polyphony (the art of combining different melodic lines) started ; Boccacio, Chaucer, Alighieri thrived…