Horribly Brilliant

“Fuck John! These renders came out too good!” I said, rhythmically pressing the right arrow key on my HP.

The hideous, robust, rough-finished concrete complemented the smoothened limestone walls rather well. My choice of chamfered travertine edging around the pool accentuated the polygonal geometry of the existing foyer.

My efforts to select modern materials had been an attempt to contrast their mundane, globally recognisable appearance with the hyper-detailed Maltese craftsmanship the 1940s palazzina still carried. Yet the lasso tool had cut so elegantly through the yellow and green herringbone tiles that the travertine edging had somehow become a revival of the very flooring we were trying to replace.

“Truth be told, I would swim in that pool,” said one of my colleagues, looking over my screen.

It was both an honest expression and an effort to ragebait. She puckered her lips and grinned at us.

“Scrap everything, Mirco. What the fuck is this? Are you working for him now?” another colleague said in desperation, in our collective efforts to save this Palazzina.

Time was not on our side. Every day, for the next four weeks, would bring us one day closer to the demolition of this palazzina: an object of such singular quality that it seemed to sit alone on a shelf, above comparison, occupying a category of its own within Malta’s architecture. There was little to measure it against, and perhaps that was precisely its value. Its demolition was therefore not simply the loss of another building, but the removal of something for which there was no equivalent.

The looming proposal retained the fabric and interior layout of the three-storey palazzina, converting it into a spa, with an indoor pool, reception, store and bar distributed through its many rooms and changes in level. The monstrosity stretched fourteen storeys above it, providing some 144 hotel rooms with unobstructed views of Balluta Bay, the neighbouring scheduling buildings, and the contractor’s own hotel and coworking block across the water.

Adobe Firefly had done (in)justice to the proposed skylight above the pool. Light blue tones reflected across the yellow-washed limestone walls of the palazzina. Bland hotel planters lined the blank interior walls of the modernist dwelling.

What would the original architect have designed with today’s vast array of luxury commodities? Would he have replaced the underground tunnel leading from his palazzina to his private pier and modernist boat with an indoor pool? Would he have exchanged his single-pane, thin-aluminium-framed windows for long French ones in white uPVC?

Fourteen storeys aside, how differently could I imagine the adaptive reuse of the interior of this palazzina?

It was too large to remain a family house, yet perfectly positioned to accommodate the mixed uses expected of such a property today. A shopfront along the promenade could draw passers-by into the belly of the building. The rooms could accommodate galleries, offices, restaurants, perhaps something less determined by the programme of a hotel. Even the central foyer could become a public interior rather than a lobby.

How justified, then, was the insertion of an indoor pool and bar, centrally placed across the large foyer at ground and first-floor levels? The privatisation would remain, but now with the commercial output required to sustain the conviviality expected of such real estate.

“Create a few visuals showing how the palazzina could be reused. We can attach them to the petition, so people can see what it could become besides a hotel lobby.”

This was the advice of one of the NGO founders helping us, a veteran of raising awareness and fighting against increasingly rampant development proposals. Her impressive portfolio contrasted her small stature, but was reinforced in her stern voice.

I scrolled through the photographs we had taken of the interior and began writing a list of what to show. Three interior shots, one of the foyer at ground floor, one of the staircase at an angle, and one of both floors from the landing of the staircase. Another two images of the enormous terrace overlooking the bay, one from its side and from its front.

People sympathise with children.

I pasted cut-outs of children onto the terrace, interacting with the space, symbolic of a workshop. An adult bent over one of them, guiding the activity. For the interiors, carefully selected track lights. Paintings. Lots of paintings to fill the blank walls. A possible art gallery.

Instead of the central bar, a bent wrought-iron sculpture in bright red.

These would certainly be favoured over images of the stocky concrete columns surrounding an indoor swimming pool.