Wednesday, 23rd July 2008
Malta: Under construction Sorry for any inconvenience caused?
When a foreign friend comes to visit, I find nothing more fulfilling than to show off my country: I am somewhat of a patriot (whatever that means). I take them to Mdina, Waterfront, the Temples, Comina, Gozo, Valletta, Birgu: the works. Yet when I asked my latest international friend what she thought of my beloved country, she answered "To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed. I thought it would be more colourful. Malta feels unfinished. It looks like a permanent construction site".
"Unfinished". I was stumped; she was right. It is practically impossible to take a 5 minute drive in any direction without noticing a tower crane. Our towns do have that unfinished aspect. You can't really move into a house which is always being renovated and call it a home.
Well of course development is essential and unavoidable. Otherwise we'd still be living in caves and people in my future profession will become instantly redundant, and new places will promote new experiences. So it's not really the tower cranes which are promoting the negative effect, but the unfinished buildings scattered around which give the overall unfinished feeling.
There are several concrete structures staining our skyline, with no real prospect of completion. Most of you surely drive by such a building that you know has been "a work in progress" for ages. Why should such an eye sore be allowed to remain that way? We have too many half finished structures littering our roads, making our roads less homely, our towns look dirty and our country feel "unfinished".
During any half informed rant, I always tend to try to find a radical solution to an obvious problem, and this one I believe is simple enough: Issue fines for ugly incomplete buildings. The logic behind it is simple: if an old man runs out in public for 30 seconds in the nude, he is arrested and fined for "indecent exposure".
So why shouldn't a much larger body which is being "indecently exposed" for months (or even years) on end, get anything less then what the streaker got? Simple! It would be a very effective (albeit unpopular) strategy. Any building development which is not completed in a decent time frame should fall liable to such action.
In certain cities, away from our precious shores, developers cover the scaffolding or the site itself with an image giving an idea of what the final structure will look like. While we're ages away from having a development Utopia, we cannot tolerate half hearted attempts at buildings to lower the overall aesthetic quality of any region or our country.
I feel that something has to be done.
Christopher Mintoff is a 5th Year Architecture and Civil Engineering student at the University of Malta and is a member of Insite – The Student Media Organisation.
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Comments
Brian, perhaps try reading my post again...to be honest i think quite a few of you should have a read at it again;i really cant see how you have managed to conjur up the fact that i said its wrong to have ambition...Heres what i said exactly again for those of you who adore jumping the gun.."its a bit overconfident and cocky" refering to the fact that he labelled what he is studying his future profession. What i said was exactly what i meant....Thats a opinion Christopher not a joke.
Another thing, honours or no honours...it's MARDI Gras, but apart from that Liam Kelly, totally agree with everything you said haha
90% of the comments are either a weak attempt at a joke, negative criticism, grammatical pin-pointing (aimed at trying to downgrade the article no doubt) or people retorting each other. Congrats to the other 10%.
Is anyone capable of some constructive criticism? (yeah CONSTRUCTIVE lol). Let Chris Mintoff be a radical, an extremist, an optimist.. whatever. It is these ideas which may bring change in this island of ours, not 'realism'. Maybe the article is a bit one-sided, but there are ways and means of criticizing a biased article. And (yes I'm starting a sentence with 'and') if all of you are so informed on the subject, why not take the initiative and write an article? Oh, wait.. cocky armchair criticism right?
Maybe the next article Insite should write should be about this attitude that is holding us back: from pessimism to lack of enforcement, from a tacit acceptance of the status quo to indifference to progressive ideas.
Mind you, this is not a question of which party is in power; so don't give me the usual "ghax gonzi" or "ghax fredu" ("zeppi" still has to make a mark).
@ Everybody who thinks that Mr. Mintoff is an unrealistic idealist, I would like to say that I myself am disappointed that he did not propose anything more drastic but, then again, he was probably trying to water things down for cynics such as yourselves....
Anybody comparing us to New York or Edinburgh is clearly unaware of that fact that such cities do not make up an entire country, and the trouble is that here in Malta, there appears to be no way of escaping such national blemishes and one would be able to do elsewhere...Our acceptance of stingy contractors should hardly be a reason to shoot proposals for more sensitive construction practices down....they should rather be the primary reason for enforcing such legislation.
@ Christopher Mintoff, you have a good point in that some parts of Malta may be under construction, however the only solutions to these problems that I have thought up, are: The construction industry ceases to exist, and because of that Malta fall into a state of disrepair, and I'm afraid that is all that I can come up with. If only the Neolithic men built more buildings, we could live in them with the guarantee of them lasting for about 6000 years.
@Christopher Mintoff, you have a bloody good point to get across in more than one topic, I'm sure. Yes, a lot of Malta is a building site - I suppose we could avoid building sites, and then Malta would be a pile of broken rocks, as builders these days don't build stuff as good quality as Hagar Qim.
Can't you take any criticism or any joke at all?
Your living in a dream world to be quite honest with you. I dont have a deafeatist attitude im simply being realistic in saying it takes time to build things...simple as that Chris.
Your right Chirs im glad too i dont share your dreams and aspirations... i already have my honors and when i was studying i didnt go around telling people i had a degree and what my future job will be i simply got on with the studies.
Im afraid my little Mar de Gras joke was lost on you Chris, no matter, im sure you'll insist to me that you understood it perfectly and retort me yet again :)
Shame people cant take a joke these days.
thx Chris... maybe something will be done now
Saying "thats just the way things are whether you like it or not" is a bit defeatist and is the sort of mentally that's slowing down progress of ideas on our island.
And calling me "over-confident and cocky" because I have aspirations which I am working for, makes me thankful I do not share your dreams in life.
When talking about colour my friend made reference to other Mediterranean islands like Rhodes. "Mar De Gras" is not the only alternative to gray concrete. Seriously.
@Denis Catania
I am referring to unfinished constructions. The case of abandoned finished buildings is another case which needs looking into, especially which developers eying ODZ to build in.
@Daniel Zammit
I agree with you that the owner should be held responsible rather than the developer after a certain period.
Well of course Old naked men are not the same as building sites. Usually one would draw parallels between two different things. I couldn't really compare 'building sites' with 'building sites' now could I?
Also, starting a sentence with "And" and "Also" or other conjunctions is grammatically incorrect.
Your fascination with 'covering up' and asthetics is a bit extreme...lets be practical about the matter; thats just the way things are whether you like it or not! If you want to see a real disaster area in terms of building work perhaps you should pay a visit to Edinburgh in the near future, where one cannot even go for a walk around the block without a fear of falling in open roadworks or being hit by falling masonry.
Thats just the ugly face of development and progress, you of all people should know that considering your 'future profession' (a bit over-confident and cocky statement perhaps)
I dont know where your friend comes from, but perhaps an idea would be to take him/her/it to Mar De Gras in Rio next time; seems it would be much better suited to both your, shall we say, 'colourful' tastes?
Are these buildings unfinished or abonded?Because unfinished is one thing, and abonded is another.
What is "ugly" is subjective and no democratic govt should have the power to discriminate/fine according to tastes or what you call "aesthetics".
When Port des Bombes, Floriana was covered "with an image giving an idea of what the final structure will look like" it caused public outrage...because it was expensive and inutile.
Developers already receive fines for missing deadlines. Permits lapse after 5 years. It is owners who should be fined.
Old naked men are not the same as building sites. That is why the same laws do not apply.
And FYI, Patriotism means: devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.
Also, the question mark in your title is grammatically incorrect.