A tribute to the late Danish architect Hans Munk Hansen, who designed the Mellieħa Holiday Centre

It was recently announced that the Danish architect Hans Munk Hansen sadly passed away on May 20, aged 92. Munk Hansen was an internationally-renowned architect who collaborated closely with the famous Danish architect Jørn Utzon, known worldwide for the design of the iconic Sydney Opera House.

Munk Hansen is best known locally for his design of the Mellieħa Holiday Centre, pop­u­­larly known as the Danish Village, that was built around 1975-77. It is undoubtedly one of the finest exam­ples of modern regionalist-inspir­ed architecture in Malta.

Eight years ago, I had penned a brief blog posting on the Din L-Art Ħelwa website entitled ‘Lessons from Denmark’ outlining Munk Hansen’s unique contribution to Malta’s architectural legacy. It would be worthwhile to reproduce it in full here mainly in apprecia­tion of his unique contribution to Malta but also as a rebuke to the indifferent way we are treating our architectural and cultural landscape:

Munk Hansen (born 1929) is not a household name, not even in local architectural circles. Yet he has bequeathed us with one of the most well-designed and pleasant tourist complexes to be built in Malta – and I would venture to say by far the best in terms of architectural quality.

Hans Munk Hansen (1929-2021)Hans Munk Hansen (1929-2021)

The Mellieħa Holiday Centre, also known as the Danish Village, was conceived in the mid-1970s. It is composed of clusters of one-storey bungalows planned around a private open courtyard, built of local limestone and typologically inspired by the local rażżett, or farmhouse.

I recall an architect friend of mine recounting how Munk Hansen had spent an entire month visiting and studying Maltese vernacular architecture prior to putting pencil to paper and embarking on the design of the tourist complex. It was time well invested as the end product is one of the finest examples of so-called critical region­alist architecture, where there is a healthy synergy between modernity and local vernacular architecture.

The bungalows are grouped in clusters and planned in the form of our local traditional villages laid out along informal pedestrian footpaths. The operators, Dansk Folke-Ferie, invested considerably in landscaping and eco-friendly measures, reaping dividends over the long term.

Although they were building on a highly-sensitive site, the developers and their architect demonstrated sensitivity in ensuring that both the scale and the nature of the built environment would be in harmony with its surroundings. That requires a high dose of skill, sensitivity and humility – quali­ties that are conspicuously absent in the present-day discourse between architects, developers and planners.

Such an unbridled exploitation of our landscape would have been totally anathema to his principles

Fast forward 30 years, and consider the kind of developments we have embraced and given the seal of approval today. We have promoted the construction of five-star hotels replete with kitsch architecture and décor, that could be anywhere in the world, bearing absolutely no relationship to our local architectural heritage or landscape.

Even more disconcerting are recent developments such as the Mistra residential project, which at dizzying heights ranging from 30 to 40 metres, looming over the ridge, should in due course earn it the infamous appellative of the ‘Great Wall of Mistra’.

Munk Hansen would not have been a popular choice of architect for local developers. Mega-scale, high-density, high-rise projects were never part of his architectural creed. Such an unbridled exploitation of our landscape would have been totally anathema to his principles.

I fear that this valuable lesson from Denmark is all but forgotten, consigned to oblivion and at best viewed with a skewed sense of nostalgia. For now, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei beckon…

Munk Hansen worked in several countries beyond his home-country Denmark, including Germany, Cyprus, Iran, Uganda, the Middle East and Asia.

He was the recipient of several architectural awards. He was awarded the prestigious European Heri­tage Europa Nostra award in 2004 for his important role in the preservation of architectural heritage and in the design of sustainable new buildings. His works related to the restoration of historical buildings, adaptation of old buildings to new uses, and new developments in landscapes and cultral heri­tage settings which reflected great sensitivity to the ‘genius locii’.

As professor of architecture at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen, he influenced a new upcoming generation of architects with his life-long commitment in breathing new life into historical towns and buildings, while respecting to the full the cultural heritage of the place.

He also wrote two seminal books, one entitled Traditional Houses and Bazaars: from Iran to Morocco and the other one, Isfahan: A Millenium of Magnificent Architecture. His deep love of Iran, Persian architecture and Isfahan in particular, developed when in his younger days in the mid-1950s he was based in Tehran representing the office of Jørn Utzon, in the construction of the Bank Melii.

On a personal note, I had the opportunity to meet Munk Hansen in April 2019 while on a visit to the Mellieħa Holiday Centre. We were discussing the possibility of having a special architectural monograph focusing on the project, which regretfully did not materialise.

His love for Malta and its cultural landscape was obvious during our conversation. He was very modest and unassuming throughout.

The one thing that impressed me most was that while sharing a number of plans and information reports, he held in his hand one particu­lar old photograph of a solitary, rather spindly-looking and weathered tamarisk tree, and commented with a warm smile “that was the only tree that stood on the previous British-period military barrack camp that we found, and I am very happy to state that we managed to save it and today, forms part of the landscape”.

Such was his love of nature and the landscape.

He bequeathed us a unique architectural landscape that we are morally and in-duty bound to preserve for future generations to come.

May his legacy live on.

Conrad Thake is an architect and associate professor at the Department of Art and Art History, University of Malta.

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