Mario Philip and The People
Ordinary citizens certainly didn't design this one
Mario Philip Azzopardi, a Maltese film-maker who has lived in Canada for the last three decades or so, but who has now returned with an urge to tell us what to do and how to do it (ghax siefer u jaf), has decided that 100,000 people should put aside 33c a day for the next five years and then use this money to pay for a national theatre designed by – of course – The People.
Earlier this evening, he posted a comment on timesofmalta.com, beneath the leading article, seeking to justify the removal of Renzo Piano from the Valletta project and his substitution by The People.
Mario Philip Azzopardi
Daniel Liebeskind (google this great international architect) was eventually dismissed from designing the new World Trade Centre in New York after public outcry. All details online.
Frank Gehry was next. Also dismissed.
Santiago Calatrava was #3
New York then turned to “Architects, Designers, Artists and ordinary citizens to contribute their ideas. ”
Presently there are 6 different Architects whose ideas are to be incorporated into the new design.
So far 6 billion dollars spent
Progress after ten years: A very big hole in the ground.
But Renzo Piano speaks and we all fall down. Our aspirations, our dreams, yes dreams, our heritage, our history, dashed to the ground. But then of course the Maltese are not like those unruly New Yorkers. The Maltese know their place in history. They will shut up and take it from all sides from the foreigner who is to be respected beyond fault.
Yes G Scerri. Colonialism is hard to shed off. We’re so afraid of the freedom it brings.
His comment seemed a little too excitable, so I posted a reply just now.
Daphne Caruana Galizia
@Mario Philip Azzopardi
David Childs, and not Daniel Liebeskind, is the architect of New York’s Freedom Tower. He was not dismissed. Frank Gehry and Santiago Calatrava designed entirely different buildings within the same complex on the site of the former World Trade Center. Gehry designed the World Trade Center cultural complex, while Calatrava designed the World Trade Center Transport Interchange. Neither architect was dismissed.
All three designs were subject to much controvery and debate, but to suggest, as you do, that
“New York then turned to Architects, Designers, Artists and ordinary citizens to contribute their ideas” is patently ludicrous.
A skyscraper of that magnitude cannot be designed by an artist, ‘designer’, or ordinary citizen – and that is quite apart from the fact that in the United States, at least, artists and designers are ordinary citizens and not more equal than others.
Your use of an initial capital letter for Architects, Designers and Artists (thereby turning them into the proper nouns which they are not) while using lower case for ordinary citizens, says more about your approach to democracy than you would like to let on.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100228/opinion/the-peoples-prima-donna
This is an excellent opinion piece by Mark-Anthony Falzon which shows just how ridiculous Mr. Azzopardi’s idea of getting funds from “the people” really is.
The views expressed by Mr. Azzopardi’s, including his comments on timesofmalta.com, show him to be a pompous, patronising and arrogant person.
[Daphne – He has no sense of humour, irony or self-deprecation. To me, that says everything I need to know about a person, and this is usually that they are far less intelligent than they think they are.]
That’s one of the best articles I’ve read on the Times in quite some time. At last, a writer who injects some of their character into their writing!
No huge fan of the Piano project as it currently stands, but the less said about Mario Azzopardi’s ideas, the better.
Daphne, any comments about today’s pantomime by the red puppet and his puppy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh6o9VxmxLs
[Daphne – Goodness, that looks like Emmanuel Mallia in his famous red outfit, doing his bit for LGBT Labour.]
Mmmmmmm……………..I wonder what else ‘the people’ can contribute towards. Perhaps the design of a power station that runs on water or air. Forgive me, but a complex task such as the city gate project requires qualified professionals to create it and make it work. Renzo Piano and his team did just that. Leave something like this for ‘the people’ to decide on and you end up with a ‘froga’.
Not commenting on the new parlament or the ‘gate’ but i think we can do better than an open air (roofless) greek style theater, If there’s not enough money , well just leave it like it is for now , its better
Won’t be long before the FAA start quoting Azzopardi’s incorrect statements.
80% of the Maltese people can’t be wrong.
[Daphne – Are you the one who’s posting comments on timesofmalta.com citing the website’s own Yes/No poll? Bit of a chicken-brain, aren’t you? That poll is the equivalent of a Cosmopolitan quiz. If you want to assess public opinion, you have to send out pollsters with a proper questionnaire and then have the results analysed by somebody trained to do so. And yes, 80% of Maltese can be wrong. The understanding that, on specialised matters like this, specialised opinion is required is implicit even in the opposing bodies’ use of Artists and Important People (proper nouns, like Mario Philip’s) to lend their names to the cause.]
No, I am not the one posting comments.
But 80% iS a lot isn’t it, especially when you consider that the readership of The Times is slanted in favour of the PN so there would be a good number who would not vote against the project even if they don’t like it.
[Daphne – The readership of The Times is not ‘slanted in favour of the PN’. By ‘The Times’, I assume you mean timesofmalta.com rather than the actual newspaper, given that the people who vote in those polls read the news on line. Surely you don’t imagine they put down their newspaper, log onto the internet, find the poll and vote? But then nothing would surprise me about your thinking, given that you vote Labour. Most of the people commenting on timesofmalta.com are Labour parrots, and semi-literate at that. Besides, architecture and style are not matters for the popular vote. If they were, we would all be living in maisonettes bl-iskultura b’xi GERIGG f’nofs il-faccata u DRAJFINN fejn nistghu naghmlu post ghall-barbikju. Mur arhom jiddizenjaw xi opera house dawn in-nies, jahasra.]
You can tell when you have been stung – your spelling goes to the dogs. Try to be a bit more unscrutable. ;) ;)
[Daphne – Looks like your spelling has gone to the dogs, Twanny. I am never stung. After two decades, I have the hide of an elephant (not your deputy leader’s, I hasten to add). There is nothing wrong with my spelling – English is my mother tongue, and not a learned language – but at 2am sloppiness sets in when hurrying up to get done with comments posted by people who should replace the ‘nny’ in their nicks with a simple T.]
haha guess what…those semi literates will throw your Pn into the Dustbin!! ahahaha the more desperate Pn gets the lower they stoop. I don’t care how talented Piano is, it is our country and we the public decide what is to be built and what is not to be built. Sure Gonzi can act as a dictator and press on with his obsession of building a wall a parliament as an entrance (you won’t find another capital city like that) but the building will be remembered as a memorial to a ruthless tyrant dictator!!
“The public decides what is to be built”
And who is going to make sense of the myriad messes proposed by ‘the public’?
I’m sad to say that this is precisely the deadly attitude that is rendering our country so bloody ugly. Politics are cyclical so I will not go into those comments. However, to say that ‘I don’t care how talented Piano is, it is our country and we the public decide’ is the epitome of arrogance.
It seems that this has become a country of budding dictatorial know-it-alls. In a country where the greatest artistic expression in public (home) architecture is the ‘balavostra’, who is clever anough to leave to the next generations something that will last and symbolise our first 40 yrs of independence? Richard England…ma tarax…we broke his back before he even started. Now we get a second (amazing) shot at Renzo Piano. And the balavostri crowd know better.
[Daphne – That’s Mintoff’s legacy for you, I’m afraid: his socialist generation of brain surgeons who are equal to roadsweepers. Dak x’ghandu ahjar minni? Haddiem tad-drajdoks jifhem daqs Pianu.]
“Mur arhom jiddizenjaw xi opera house dawn in-nies, jahasra.”
And why not? What’s wrong with bathroom tiles on the façade?
Something that rubs me the wrong way are comments referring to ‘The People’ or ‘iz-Zghir’ for ordinary folk.
As opposed to the ‘extraordinary folk’ that do not agree with ‘The People’, one would imagine.
It’s odd that ‘The People’ imagine that, left to their own devices, they’ll sort things out properly. It wouldn’t be long before they realised that they’d have to elect representatives first.
How would that be any different to the way things are now?
Did he do the math in his head? It took me all of 1 minute to give an acquaintance cold feet about it. I told her:
100,000 people means one in every household. So are YOU ready to give €13 every month for the next five years? Every family has to do it or else the plan fails.
It’s not a plan. It’s a stunt.
Yes, a stunt by Mario Philip intended to get the attention focused onto him. There is no better way to get free publicity.
The saga goes on…..now it’s gonna have a partial roof..
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100301/local/partial-roof-features-in-new-city-gate-theatre-plans
…or should that be inscrutable?
X’ pajjiz tal-Mickey Mouse, jahasra. X’mentalita – oqghod investi! Ahjar immorru l-bahar, naghmlu xi caravan hemmhekk, u nieklu bicca hobz. Jahasra, miskin dal-pajjiz.
The maths here is off mark, by miles.
If we were to suspend disbelief for a minute here, and genuinely believe that it was possible for 100,000 individuals to set aside EUR10 a month, then the EUR 60 mllion target should be achievable in less than five years.
What happened to compound interest? Presumably, these funds would be deposited at a credit institution offering interest on the monies, as they come pouring in. Two scenarios here – EUR 60 million in less than 5 years *or* softer repayments than EUR 10 a month (allowing for compound interest to make up the balance).
And what about fluctuation in the price of the raw materials necessary to build the opera house? Not to mention the cost of labour?
Such linear, insular thinking makes me shake my head in utter disbelief. The very thought that it is being proposed and making headlines is insane and preposterous.
[Daphne – Every nation needs its jesters.]
Collecting the money would be the easy part.
It seems Malta has more than its fair share of jesters.
I was shocked by the number of people who claimed on timesofmalta.com that they (or any other Tom, Dick or Harry) can produce better designs then Piano. These comments came from people who probably never drew anything in their life let alone designed a building.
As Dr Mark-Anthony Falzon said, Dr Gonzi needs to act on his electoral mandate to govern and make decisions. Stop the back-pedalling, ignore these self-appointed experts and proceed with the Piano project as designed by Piano as a matter of priority. We, ‘the people’, want action – now. The artistes who are against the project have all the freedom not to use the facilities.
Where do you get the strange notion that Gonzi, with his 1,500-vote ‘majority’ obtained by dodgy means, has a mandate to build a gorilla cage at City Gate?
[Daphne – At least he does have a mandate to govern, Twanny, unlike Joseph Muscat, who is busy trying to govern from his seat in the Opposition, when even that seat was sequestered off a naive, trusting, gullibel chump who was democratically elected, unlike Muscat. Why do you think they homed in on Joseph Cuschieri? Because he was the weakest link. Every other Labour MP would have shown him a finger if he came asking for their seat. You criticise Gonzi for his 1,500 majority, when your leader wasn’t even elected by The People. That’s arrogance for you.]
Why should we rely on one world-famous architect and pay him a handsome fee when we have 320,000 (80% of 400,000) self-appointed architects (and 128 artistes) who are willing to design the Valletta project for free, although they cannot decide amongst themselves what they want?
After all, they have been at it for 68 years, so why the hurry?
Maybe Gonzi should consult with the GWU and the Labour Party for advice? Funny how the GWU has not organised a protest against the project. Could it be because Joseph Muscat has not ordered them to hold one? Or is it because the twit has dreams of inaugurating the new parliament building himself?
[Daphne – If memory serves me right (and I can’t be bothered right now to look up the reference) the GWU declared itself in favour of the project because of the jobs and work it would generate. I might be wrong. Perhaps somebody out there has the time and patience to do some Googling. Joseph Muscat loves the project, but he just can’t say so. He was there at the front row during its unveiling, and his facial expression was like that of a small boy seeing wonders. Commonsense should tell even the least astute observer of human nature that he would like it very much: it is the ultimate in aspirational dreams, status, brands, rank, contemporary chic, progressive architecture, call it what you will. It is right up his street, and the few noises he has made about the open-air theatre are just there to keep people happy. Muscat is the sort of man who would be happier living the lifestyle that goes with a penthouse in Manhattan; he seems completely at odds with his faux farmhouse environment in Burmarrad. I suspect he really does understand the full status significance of a Renzo Piano project like this, even if he doesn’t quite grasp the architecture. That gives me one positive thing to say about him.]
This thing about ‘the people’ reminds me of communism, which championed The People while leaving them in ignorance and deprivation.
At the same time, strangely, the criticism of Piano’s project is rooted in conservatism.
I have some reservations about the project, but I know that all his designs have been controversial. That is architecture – an architect has to make a mark so that the project attracts interest, possibly globally.
That is what makes Piano what he is. Going back to conventional styles is not necessary. We deserve something innovative as long as it is affordable.
If the artists want a place so much (as what we have isn’t good enough for them) why don’t they buy a piece of land and build it themselves?
Please allow me to put two questions to Adrian Buckle (1 of the 128 artists who signed the petition):
It has been said that the signatories to the petition received an email with just two or three lines and that they never got to see the actual letter until it was published in The Times. Is this true?
If so, can you please reproduce what this short note said?
Dear embor,
“It has been said that the signatories to the petition received an email with just two or three lines and that they never got to see the actual letter until it was published in The Times. Is this true?”
Answer: No.
Just to be clear: Did each and every signatory get to see the letter before he/she gave his/her endorsement?
Why not just halve the number of MP’S and immediately double their existiting space in the beautiful palace. Re design the awful parliament chamber and use the millions saved by not building a completely unnecessary new parliament and investing in a genuine rehabilitation of Valletta to its former glory. As for the roofless theatre, I think it’s a fantastic idea for a Mediterranean climate like ours and the city gate plans are “simply the best”.