Feb 05 2026
·4 min
“The first Porks of the village, our village!”, expressed the Mayor. His broken English starkly contrasted the words of Pork Jerky snack business owner before him.
“And how proud I am to call it ours, our countries pride”, he continued. The small group of people sitting in the sunny piazza applauded louder than the standing audience. Given the scorching afternoon Mediterranean sun, the Mayor was wearing a full navy blue suit, with a red and white pin strip on his breast. The buisness owner wore a checkered shirt, sleeves rolled up. The slight dark purple stains on his shirt alluded that this opening event might have interrupted his pork snack- making. The Mayor stood small and tall against the stand, and looked up to the buisness owner, he shook his hand and held a wide smile for the camera.
Together, they unveiled a small plaque on the otherwise ordinary masonry facade, to the right of the bronze frame double door. The glass doors reflected the facades across the street, making it difficult to look into the shop. Elder women, presumed family of the rather young buisness owner, proudly served small pork samples on a silver tray. The sun reflected brightly on the tray, making it difficult to examine the “newly village owns snack”, as the Mayor had put it.
The plaque was clad in bronze, with a figure placed centrally in the circular shape. At a glance, it mimicked a coin at an exaggerated scale. St Paul, the patron saint of the village, was portrayed leading a small herd of pigs. The name, ‘Cheeky Pork’s’ written below the figure, with the villages name and date of inauguration embossed along the perimeter.
How intricate, and oddly unique. The plaque was always to be in the shade, given the masonry protrusions above it. The two-storey facade boasted restored blockwork, with white uPVC timber grain effect louvers. I had just installed the same louvers for a coastal penthouse I had designed.
The pork factory-shop was bound by a traditional townhouse on either side. All of them shared a uniformity in scale, fenestration, and colour scheme. The louvers, the main doorway, and the front garden rails were finished in bronze. The bronze finishes were widely used across the island in the late 1960s, up until the early 2010s. Slatted garages doors, gates, spiraled window grills, pregnant window frames, curved door handles —you name it, you had it made in bronze.
The Planning Regulation Body had banned the use of bronze, after deeming the material “ugly, and contrasting in nature to traditional materials”. This was immediately replaced with generic white, or on the rare occasion black, uPVC aluminum frames. Looking at the streetscape of the Pork Factory, the white uPVC highlighted the rectangular windows, while that of the bronze material subtly screened off the neighboring properties, blending in with the brown-yellowish hue of the weathered stone.
“In a country where we are loosing everything, facadism becomes extremely important to our national identity”, the words of my old professor echoed in my hand, as I examined the streetscape.
The Pork Factory, in its quirky nature, was unique to the street, and to the village. The pride in the Mayors voice, expressing its, “one and only” new shop, resonated in the design.
How important, I thought, it is to have such a passionate voice make decisions for the village.
Why then, does a singular planning commission regulate drawings and generic facade proposals across the whole island, validating all sixty-four villages in the same manner?
The idea of having the Local Council on the planning commission would prove fruitful, I thought. Together with the commission, they would approve, reject, or request amendments solely pertaining to the facade. Only then, would unique characteristics symbolize, as proudly as the Pork Factory, the identity of the place. I would speculate on having ventilation grills portray the coat of arms of the locality, or a small flag pole outside the door that once housed the first village doctor, for instance. Occurrences, endangered,
Intangible heritage that few of the residents still knew of could be commemorated.
Indeed, the Local Councils approval would be shared equally with the Commissions. The provision of bronze busts or coat of arms outside every townhouse might be usual Local Council considerations. However, if controlled, it would only benefit the people.
Architects, including myself, shake our heads and roll our eyes at a councils request. Yet, who are we, to determine what is beautiful, or worse, right for the facade?
A facade we will not walk past everyday on the way to the market, or gaze out of every night before bed. The subjective beauty is therefore best instilled in the people, its residents, and the power bestowed in the community- elected Local Council members.