The environmental NGO Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar is presenting an evening with celebrated architect Richard England on April 4. The event is taking place at the ballroom of the Phoenicia Hotel, Floriana, at 6.30pm.

During the evening, the NGO will interview England and invite him to discuss his influences and passion for architecture, design and art. He will also be asked to elaborate on the residences, churches and hotels he has designed over the decades through drawings, photos and anecdotes.

“What is modern Maltese architecture? Does it even exist?”, ask the organisers.

Richard England. Photo: Rene Rossignau

As a young architect, England established his reputation primarily on the basis of a several modern hotels that were built in a short period of time – the Paradise Bay hotel, the Ramla Bay hotel, Hyperion and Dolmen hotels, the Tower Palace and Cavalieri Hotels.

“These hotel designs reflected a desire to express a mellow modernism to meet Maltese conditions imposed by its climate, building materials, and construction processes,” explain the organisers.  

“However, the most iconic building of this era is the new Manikata church which took well over a decade to be fully completed.”

England’s work is described as breaking away from the pressures of replicating a pseudo-Baroque or Neo-Classical church design in favour of a design that is intrinsically a site-specific solution that responded to both the reforms and changes emanating from Vatican Council II.

His philosophy proposes a process of evolution as opposed to revolution, as he maintains that architecture should be appropriate to both place and time and that it should evoke the spirit of the place, as an expression of contemporary regionalism.

“I think it is an obligation for every architect to remember that he or she should perform not only as a designer of the future, but also as a defender of the past. In order to build the new, we must of necessity understand the old and use it as a springboard for the future,” said the architect in an interview in 2022.

An Evening with Richard England by Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar is taking place at the Phoenicia Hotel, Floriana, at 6.30pm. After the interview, guests can opt to partake of a light dinner at the Phoenix Restaurant. Bookings are required at ticketengine.faa.org.mt for the talk and dinner. Bookings for the dinner will be accepted until Thursday, March 30. Guests are asked to be seated in the ballroom of the Phoenicia Hotel for the talk by 6.15pm.