An eye for detail

Last Thursday evening remains a memorable occasion for the rest of my life. I had the privilege to inaugurate the extensive embellishment works carried out on the Sliema promenade. After months of sheer hard work and dedication put in by so many workers in Government employment joined by various contractors, this project could be inaugurated.

I am a firm believer that the success of any project pertains to our ability to see to the various details, to then put it all together in one package. By and large, people walking along the Sliema promenade - and there will be thousands of them this summer - will like what they see. Even last summer, when works were still incomplete, Sliema benefited from many new visitors who admired the works that had already been carried out. I thank all those who exclaimed their appreciation and contentment.

This is another project that Government can consider among its success stories. This embellishment project has worked out well because of the various components that make us its success story.

It is the new paving tiles, the new railings and bollards, the fact that balconies have been added overlooking the sea not only to create more 'belvederes' but also to enlarge the pedestrian area by around 50 per cent, no fewer than 120 lamp-posts have been created overlooking the sea area to give the promenade a warmer and more appeasing style, water spouts were created to make it easier for persons brisk walking or jogging, especially in the early hours of the morning to go about their sporting activities, a continuous lane for planters and tamarisk trees was put into the design, up lighters were placed in this path to create occasional light effects on the plants, flowers and trees; a drip irrigation system was set up to ensure that the 'green' strip can be well maintained, a large well was dug up to receive, through purposely built canals, run-off water from the area and in turn provide water for the drip irrigation system; additional benches and a new public convenience were added; bus shelters and telephone kiosks were completely overhauled and a drinks and catering kiosk was rebuilt in a style that matches the rest of the new promenade furniture. Over and above all this, we have installed a fascinating work of sculpture... more about that later.

I do not claim that this list is exhaustive, but it comes close enough to offering a thorough analysis of why the promenade now looks the way it does. Not only does the success of the whole depend on seeing to its constituent parts, but equally appreciation of any new project depends on understanding the different elements that make it up. In both situations, it is crucial to have an eye for detail.

A word of appreciation to all the persons who made it happen is due. The energy and wholehearted dedication put in by members of private secretariats within ministries is often either taken for granted and not given the attention that it deserves. The truth of the matter is that were it for one such person in my own secretariat, Michael Aquilina, this project would have never come together.

Appreciation is due to the architect who conceived all the design, Emanuel Buttigieg, who has already given Sliema its Independence Garden created the design, had an impeccable eye for detail and well before any one of us could visualise the beauty that was already clear to his creative mind, he showed us how what we what were dreaming about could take concrete shapes and forms.

Equally I thank Architect Vincent Cassar, director-general of the Works Division, Ray Farrugia, director of the Building and Engineering Department, Vince Magri, director of the Department of Manufacture and Services (still popularly known as the Garaxx tal-Gvern), and last but certainly not least Philip Bugeja, who acted as foreman over all works carried out by employees within the Districts Department, and who went well beyond his normal call of duty to ensure that the works were carried out to the level of perfection demanded, and finished on time.

Another word of gratitude is due to MEPA, Enemalta Corporation, Water Services Corporation as well as Maltacom without whose input we would have never achieved the targets that we set ourselves. Equally I thank all our employees and those engaged with various contractors who worked with us to make this dream come true.

Works on the embellishment of the Sliema promenade stretch over no less than one and a half kilometres. Work was split in two phases, a span of around 850 metres from the Fortizza to the Tower was phase one, and a span of another 600 metres from the Tower to Balluta was phase two.

Even as works were reaching their finishing touches for last Thursday's inauguration, other workers were busily engaged on a neighbouring promenade - in St Julian's, where similarly an eye for detail will ensure a wider promenade with impressive balconies overlooking the sea. In this case walls and other structures had to be built up from the sea to support the new areas being created.

Before the beginning of summer, works on St Julian's would be almost complete in the area between St Julian's and Neptunes' waterpolo pitches. After summer, the plan is to proceed from the Neptunes pitch towards the Barracuda area, and from St Julian's pitch towards Sliema. The end result by next year will be a project with continuity of design linking the St Julian's and Sliema promenades, from Spinola right up to Fortizza.

The sufferance of residents who have for months to bear the dust, trenches, closure of roads, noise and other inconveniences associated with any project of such dimensions would have been rewarded. Equally residents will understand that they have not been forgotten, nor simply asked to understand that they live in an area that does not only cater for them but welcomes thousands others from all parts of the island and thousands more from other parts of the world! They are being told that the persons who live in these localities do matter and we care about them.

Since the present government embarked on various embellishment projects, we have spent close to Lm10 million. The first project was carried out at Marsascala. Apart from Sliema and St Julian's, embellishment projects have and are being carried out at Bugibba, Qawra, Marsaxlokk, Birzebbugia, as well as in the bays around Gnejna and Ghar Lapsi.

That is apart from countless public areas, gardens and paving projects in most parts of the country, working in close collaboration with local councils. That is apart from rehabilitation projects in Valletta, Floriana, Cottonera and Mdina. And apart from the restoration initiatives in various historic sites around Malta.

Last Thursday, in Sliema, we added the cherry on the cake. We felt that it would be appropriate to provide the area with a sculpture, an innovative piece of art, a creation that enhances the locality. I approached Professor Richard England to do this job and he immediately agreed to do it without any payment or other compensation. He has, as is typical of his works, provided us with an imaginative and original work.

In Richard's work, we do not see the subject - but the subject is manifest through the 'white shadows' emanating through cut-outs made on marble and projecting onto a platform behind his creation.

White Shadows is a sculpture of cut-outs of human figures depicting family groups strolling on the promenade; an evocation of what in fact is the main function of this new embellishment project, where people take regular morning or evening strolls.

The cut-outs in the vertical marble slab cast elongated white shadows on the promenade's paving in the early hours of the morning. At the height of the summer season in the hot noon day hours, the shadows almost vanish. This is the tantalising aspect of the work. It is not revealing all its secrets all the time, the work becomes a sculpture which is designed to tease, provoke and which can only be totally understood and deciphered within the total cyclic time frame of a whole calendar year.

Only in certain seasons, particularly in winter, when the sun is at its lowest height, do we get the mysterious white shadows cast on the platform. To view them one must understand how reflections work according to the circular movements of the globe around the sun as was the basis of original sun dials. Of all the people on the family walk, it is only these sculptured cut-outs which cast shadows in white.

Shadows by definition are dark implying a concept of 'no light'. In this work, the process is reversed and the shadows cast by the pattern are in fact light emanating through the actual cut-outs. During daytime at the various times of the year, the sculpture acts as a gnomon marking in dynamic form the inevitability of the passage of time. As each day passes, light shadows mark time recurrent and time changing in an intermix of both white light and black shadow.

Ironically only at night when an artificial flood light has to take over from the sun (and there is no more of us moving around it in astrological terms or otherwise!) does the seasonal Time-Marker become constant. During the hours of darkness, the elongated shadows once again cast in white are static, delineated in fixed light silhouettes on the marble platform.

This work of art adds another innovative detail to the Sliema promenade. With an eye for detail, we are pleased to have made it happen.