They were doing this all along, but still they kept Mangion on the payroll and will keep him on
Published:
February 7, 2015 at 4:16pm
Market stallholders, carnival-float builders, bird-shooters and Sandro Chetcuti: the kings of the Taghna Lkoll movement. What a letdown, eh?
My verdict on these plans (see video): the epitome of Taghna Lkoll thinking and design – a Greek theatre for the performing arts with a direct long view onto a double row of warehouses with shuttered steel fronts, for carnival-float builders.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2015-02-07/local-news/Six-million-euro-investment-in-carnival-village-and-performance-centre-for-artists-in-Marsa-6736130233
Lovely palette: 80s Barbie meets Fisher Price.
The gate looks narrow and the entrance canopy low.
The usable space inside each warehouse only as wide as the door opening, get rid of those US Navy Carrier style graphics.
And how do shutters roll onto glass lights? And why don’t these go all the way up to the overhang anyway?
Indeed, why the overhang if the intention is to get in as much light as possible?
Sigh.
And finally, installing solar panels when the trade is much better served by direct natural light may be another mistake. It’s not as if papier mache’ results in an energy intensive process, is it?
That’s not the point, Jozef. In fact it’s not bad at all. The point is that they left poor Willie searching in vain when they knew all along what they had in mind.
Mhux sew, miskin, Willie. Hlewlu sentejn minn hajtu.
Not really kev, not when costume making and rehearsals had become an intrinsic part of communities.
Centralising everything it may not enthuse everyone. I don’t get the amphitheatre. Looks tiny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldD25GvCkxI
The kids love quaint places, Jozef. And it gives the impression that the country is growing without having to grow up at all.
Take the papier mache aficionados. They deserve an upgrade, even if carnival looks the same year-in-year-out and no one would notice if they flaunted the same floats.
Meanwhile, Willie had promised Maltese bandsmen a garage, many of whom had grown old waiting, but fortunately without growing up. And in just two years he delivered 20-fold with an amphitheatre to spare. No wonder the bandsmen are ecstatic.
As you can see, there’s a quality to Joseph Muscat that transcends physical reality. But if you want to see magic, wait till he grows up.
I agree with all points here. But carnival floats are not only made of papier mache. A lot is invested in hydraulic systems and welding is more important.
A lot is spent on safety and this includes an inside iron structure. Hopefully the solar panelling will be used to light up the whole structure and not only the warehouses.
Yes fine, but what’s the production rate per annum here?
Overkill is an understatement.
Squeezed between the Marsa Open Centre and the abbatoir, I’m sure the carnival floats depot will make an interesting viewing for our continually improving tourist market (wasn’t that the original plan?).
Well, when the catch Charlon Gouder and his like in the area, at odd times in the morning, they can always say they were there for band practice.
It looks like we will be celebrating carnival all year round.
Mhux diga ghandna teatru bla saqaf?
Progetti kbar ghall-pajjiz.
Gvern Nazzjonalista : Sptar Mater Dei, Centru ghall-Onkologija, Science Park, Smart City, progett dahla Bieb il-Belt, estensjoni tal-power station, skola gdida kull sena fost ohrajn.
Gvern Laburista : centru ghall-karnival u d-daqq tal-bands, (meta jkun lest), power station mhux mehtiega (meta titlesta).
Progetti kbar ghall-pajjiz. Inzid iktar.
Gvern Nazzjonalista : kilometri ta’ toroq arterjali; progetti kbar ta’ tisbih bhal Dock No 1 u d-ditch ta’ l-imdina; progetti kbar ta’ restawr bhal kilometri ta’ swar, il-Fortificatiosn Interactive Centre u Forti Sant Iermu; parks bhal Ta’ Qali, ir-riabiltazzjoni tal-Maghtab il-park ta’ Marsaskala.
Gvern Laburista : bahh, kliem fil-vojt u aktar bahh.
So now it is OK to have what they called a “roofless theatre”?
Dak qisu teatru bla saqaf! Horror, choke.
Where are the naysayers now? Do they reserve their horrified reactions only for anything which the Nationalists do?
There is no money to finish the Valletta project but money to start a new one – hmmm, just like parents who can afford to drink or gamble but have an empty fridge and larder and the children go hungry.
Abusers always wrangle some sort of justification.
Another open theatre. I wonder if the detractors of the Piano-designed theatre are going to complain about this.
I doubt it. I doubt it because they will be surrounded by a bunch of people who want a garage to practice in and build floats.
Here is an important question: is it a bad thing to build garages where bands can practice and float builders can build?
My answer: no.
However, most people stop there. If the result is positive then what comes before is positive too, and disagreeing with it doesn’t make sense. Or, to use the buzz word du jour, it is “negative”.
The real question we should be asking is this: in a world that is still recovering from a huge financial crisis, a world where Isis may well be on our front door and Europe struggling not to go to war with Russia, and a country that has limited income and sources of income, does it make sense to spend all this money on garages for bands and float-building?
My answer: no.
Plus, why did they pay that Mangion person all that money to “find” garages and then go ahead and plan to build them anyway? Which is the waste of money?
Bands get together and find a place to practise themselves. That is part of the fun of being in a band. They don’t need to government to go out looking for a place for them to practise. Also, how many bands do we have in Malta exactly? This all seems to me like a Kim Jong Un folly in every way.
Willy’s all set up for life. This project, and the finished building, is going to need a CEO.
My comments:
1. Left and right leading up to theatre: seen it before on “Storage Wars”.
2. The theatre: so the Pope’s coming again is he?
[Daphne – I don’t believe this. Storage Wars: that’s exactly what I wrote about it for my column in The Malta Independent tomorrow.]
That’s exactly what I thought too when I saw the clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLY4KE-mQO4
Episode 2. The first tenants move in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iapD85qF3Zw
Greek theatres, and their derivative, the Roman theatre, had one thing in common: their spectacular siting to ensure that the backdrop would be some breathtaking natural panorama, even behind the scaeniae frons, when this was a built up stage structure.
See Epidaurus, Delphi, Cassope, Miletus, Plovdiv, Hierapolis, and, closer home, Taormina and Syracuse. The natural scene behind the stage was to die for, chosen for its outstanding beauty.
In Malta we go one better. We actually plan a phony ‘Greek theatre’ deliberately to face a row of sad mhazen and storijiet.
Was the designer of the Monti stalls consulted?
Consulted? His clone might have actually designed it!
It is one and the same.
Is the architect who designed this project the same one who designed the market stalls?
Yes
And how is this exactly going to work. Will we have actors rehearsing in that theatre while the carnival ‘enthusiasts’ hammer and weld in the garages down the row?
And the bands practising at the same time? John Milton’s description of Pandemonium would be very appropriate here.
Maybe they’re keeping him on because, as Margaret Thatcher famously said in Parliament about William Whitelaw, her Home Secretary, “Every Prime Minister needs to have a willie”
Qisu xi haga bhalma jibnu t-tfal bil-loghba Minecraft.
From a bird’s eye view it seems a lot like an unflattering and censored version of Claude Nicolas Ledoux’s House of Pleasure.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/5/10/1368198651996/ledoux.gif
Now work this out.
If it takes one Willie Mangion two years to find a garage, how many years will it take this same man to complete a €6 million project?
The mere thought gives me the willies.
I think we should be looking at who has a son or daughter who plays or wants to play in a band.
If you think that is too far fetched, just consider how a certain choir mushroomed.
Don’t fool yourselves with the theatre or any other bits (supposedly for artists) that might be added to the complex. All that is just marketing.
The building will only serve the carnival people and they will have their junk, not to mention their loudness and ħamallaġni, all over the place.
Can you imagine actors and audience members navigating the mess to get to the theatre?
Neither can I.
Willie has finally found the ideal site for his €6 million garage.
The project designers worked overnight to produce a visual for public consumption because, you know, up until a few days back no one knew where Willie’s preferred site would be.
Now that he’s finally unveiled the location he will sadly discover that the site is absolutely unsuitable. No one will dare go there, not the carnival-float builders, not the musicians because according to ‘five hats’ Arron Farrugia, Marsa is a ‘no-go areas’ for Maltese people. It is an example of ‘ghettoisation’ where no one other than Charlon Gouder may dare to venture into.
So a hotel singer gets appointed…. Sorry, what was the job description?
Carnival floats are probably built in the evening and on weekends. How can one have an open theatre performance with all the noise going on? Whoever came up with this has not got any idea of the level of traffic noise in the area.