Tony Zammit Cutajar (January 3) is concerned that Minister Jesmond Mugliett has stated that the City Gate and Opera House projects are to be handled separately. I am delighted.

Many years ago, as a voice in the wilderness, I had argued that these two sites should be handled separately and I am pleased to note a ministerial statement, for the first time in this drawn-out saga, concurring with my view (though whether for the same reason I know not).

My reasoning that the sites should be dealt with separately is that, other than their chance relative proximity, they have absolutely nothing in common, neither historically nor in function. Each site calls for its own individual unlinked solution.

The Opera House was built in the second half of the 19th century as an independent self-standing autonomous structure with a specific function, unrelated to any nearby edifice.

The City Gate (Porta San Giorgio) is a different kettle of fish. The crucial and fundamental difference between this and the Opera House site is that it is not an independent site. Originally built in the 16th century, it occupies but some metres of the kilometre-long unique 16th century bastions encircling Valletta. It is part and parcel of the fortifications and the new gate should reflect this reality. It should not be given over to architectural flights of fancy.

Though not necessarily advocating it, a case could be made for an innovative Piano design on the independent Opera House site. Porta San Giorgio, however, cries out for a restorative project on the unique 16th century bastions.

When our Caravaggio was vandalised (as have been the bastions by the present horror) we properly did not engage some Damien Hurst to fill in the gap with some innovative daubing or installations. We restored it. Just as we should restore our bastions with a gate sympathetic and in keeping with the whole ring of encircling fortifications - of which it is an integral part. Not a "gate" that denies its historical role.

Unlike Mr Zammit Cutajar I shed no tears that Piano has withdrawn his design for City Gate. Eminent though he undoubtedly is, it follows not that he necessarily got the City Gate design right. I believe he got it wrong. Not only because it is not a gate but a gaping hole that he envisaged - but also because his plan entails yet further destruction to surviving Knights' structures on the site. Piano intended to destroy the narrow early 1600s Tumas Dingli stone-vaulted arches that bridge the ditch to the gate (which survived beneath the present much widened structure), destroy a little more of the bastions on either side of the gate and punch holes into the base of the bastions beneath the gate.

Any plan for City Gate should start with the premise of conserving what remains of defending the past (haven't we destroyed enough?). The design should also respect the history of the site. The last time we built a gate here, disrespecting the history of the site, going "modern", we ended up with a contemptible fascist style aberration. Let us not repeat that mistake.

Now that the minister has determined to treat the sites separately the way has been paved to find the appropriate separate solution for either site.