Planning authority dogged by controversy - five centuries ago

Those of us who have at one time or another vilified the Malta Environment and Planning Authority would perhaps feel relieved to know that the authority is not a brainchild of some over-zealous 20th century eco-crusader.

Planning authorities have been around for centuries. In fact, when the Knights of St John were expelled from Rhodes and eventually came to Malta in 1530 they set up an office to control rents in Vittoriosa. The need for such an office was felt because the building of the bastions to turn the maritime locality into a fortified city had attracted a crowd of artisans and sailors looking for a job, pushing up rents.

The office was meant also to control transactions in property and encourage the building of new homes. The office eventually mushroomed into a planning authority for the construction of Valletta.

These and other fascinating details about the development of architecture in Malta pepper the book L-Arkitettura f'Malta by Jo Tonna.

Mr Tonna was head of the architecture department at the University of Malta between 1973 and 1978 after which he went to Saudi Arabia where he lectured at the universities of Jedda and Dammam.

In his book, Mr Tonna notes that once the Knights arrived in Vittoriosa, the Castellan of the fort (later called St Angelo) had to move out to make way for the Grand Master. The parish priest and parishioners had to give up their church to be used as a conventual church by the Order.

L-Arkitettura f'Malta is one in a set of three books in the Kullana Kulturali series produced by PIN. Originally, the series was meant to include 60 hardbound books but after this number was reached last year, the publishers decided to extend it by another 12. The current batch is the first of the additional books.

The planning authority set up by the Knights was the centre of controversy because it ended up taking over the best properties and land for the collacchio, the Knights' residential quarters.

The book would have made a better read but for the author's penchant to employ archaic Maltese words and such aberrations as kavallieri sptarieri.

The second book in the current trio is L-Istorja ta' L-Alfabett Malti (The History Of The Maltese Alphabet) by Marisa Farrugia, which sets out how the Maltese alphabet matured from that of the 15th and 16th centuries to the alphabet by Gan Frangisk Abela, that by Canon Agius de Soldanis and up to the current one.

The third book is Il-Presepju fil-Milied Malti in which the author, maritime researcher Joseph Muscat, went inland to tell the story of the Maltese Christmas crib and the Sicilian influences that shaped it to what it has become today.