10 hours Ago By Fiona Galea Debono
The winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award in architecture may be hopeful about the work of a new generation of young architects, but he is also concerned about an “economic train crash”, a centralised planning system and a killed Valletta community. Culturally “construction crazy” and the inventor of ‘Bitrent’ – that is also Malta for David Felice. He may have been honoured for his career at architectural firm AP Valletta by the Galizia, but at 61, the youngest recipient, this is no swan song.
As his firm, which focuses on sustainable heritage, goes through big changes, making even more space for a fresh crop of younger architects, and the AP Foundation is being formed, Felice and his team are busy drafting a hard-hitting manifesto to go with it. Acknowledging that an article on the ’s awards drew in some “misguided” negative comments towards architects, he believes it is a reflection of where people stand today. “They are super angry.
.. which tells you how big the problem is and that it is time to shift the cycle.
” But for Felice, the achievement at that ceremony lay mostly in seeing the young architects collecting their awards for “great projects that show another Malta – a parallel universe” – as well as noting that many of them “grew” at AP, which is proud to have created its own competition. “These guys are trying to make a difference, with amazing projects that could change the country for the better. Unfortunately, our best work is often the project that never gets there because it failed for the wrong reasons.
“Younger architects suffer like crazy, refused great projects on something silly, and they don’t make their living from architecture anymore; their money comes from rent.” Which brings him to the point that “we all have our finger in this pie. Ninety per cent of the population is driven by the construction industry”.
The country has a history, dating back thousands of years, of being “construction crazy”. It is a “cultural” thing, he maintains. “That is what we are – builders.
.. And what is built reflects the culture of the time.
But it also moves in cycles...
Buildings do not last forever.” For Felice, the crux of the problem is not so much the Mercury Towers and Villa Rosas of this world, but the fact that power and decision taking are centralised in government, especially the planning system. The key to where we are today lies in a planning system that is partial to central government, Felice states.
It is driven by politicians and cannot, therefore, work in the interest of the common good. “If we do not learn that we need to move to a system that is completely detached from politics, things will never change. “It is time for the politicians to get their hands off the planning system and let it be run independently, by the experts we trust.
If we do not, we fire them. But we do not tell them what to do. Felice believes there are good people in the Planning Authority, who really know their stuff, and that “we should be interested in what they can contribute if allowed to think freely.
“Otherwise, central government will control where to do projects, who will do them, who will benefit from them and even what they will look like, instead of relying on the experts.” The architect is, of course, not against “positive” development, which is an important industry. But the attractiveness of the built and unbuilt environment is also vital and more important.
“We can publish all the statistics in the world, but unless we remain attractive, the numbers won’t work.” He warns “things will change the moment we open the window one day and say: ‘Oh my God, what a horrible mess this is.’ Attractiveness is key to maintaining a healthy property market.
“If this is not the case, then property will start to go down,” Felice predicts. “We are no different from other countries. Malta is just younger, but the same metrics as elsewhere apply.
“Here, it is just more controllable – central government intervenes and provides support, from down payments to subsidised interest...
” But in economic terms, the situation resembles a “train crash”: the only way to sustain an economy driven by construction is to keep feeding it. “You have a train going at really high speed, and you just keep accelerating,” Felice says. “Once, the property agenda was dominated by concern over 70,000 empty houses.
What became of them? We filled them up,” he says of a plan to grow the population and appease the rest with rent. “Other countries came up with Bitcoin. We came up with Bitrent.
We have all bought into the system. “We all want to own a property we can rent out permanently to someone who shows up as little as possible, and this has led to a construction industry on steroids.” But are people actually wealthier than they were 20 years ago, he questions.
“If you are looking to buy property, whatever more you are earning is now lost on the higher cost of what you are going to buy next. I think we are exactly where we were 20 years ago – just stuck in more traffic! “We need to do things the right way. But we need to do them the right way for ourselves first.
That way, when foreigners visit, they can share in the enjoyment of the common good.” But Malta does the opposite, he points out. “We acknowledge that tourism is important, so we are ready to do things that may not be of benefit to ourselves and go along with it because of the immediate financial gain.
“We adapt our environment to satisfy that, but no one ever measures the real cost of tourism; what it costs in roads, airports, power and water, every drop of which we have to produce. “Imagine if it were the other way round. We should put ourselves at the centre, and make this a really attractive place, where we like being, living and growing our communities; a place we will be happy to die in.
And then foreigners will love this too.” The former V18 head, pre-Jason Micallef, is hesitant to talk about the capital, aware that his comments could sound like sour grapes. Christmas is long gone, and he was not going to waste time talking about a controversial Christmas tree in Freedom Square.
But again, it is a question of control. “Valletta is our political, cultural and commercial heart; the place where our history is made. It is, therefore, also a place where people express themselves best and protest.
“No single person can control this, least of all the person in charge of Valletta’s foremost cultural agency. But he saw that Christmas tree as a symbolic obstacle to the people’s right of ownership over the city.” Yes, Valletta is amazing, Felice concurs.
“But it is not thanks to one person. It existed before, and if anything, our duty is to care for and enable its citizens.” The capital is measured by its community.
And what does it tell him? That its heart has been “ripped apart”. How many of its residents still require social support? Why is the soup kitchen full every day? “That is Valletta for me too.” A key value V18 should have built on was strengthening its community and trying to help it improve its living condition.
Instead, this has almost been killed off. “You have a community that is crying out, while a compromise is reached to hold on to power and control by letting a number of people do what they like.” In the 1980s, Felice recalls, Valletta’s population was around 20,000.
When he headed V18, until 2013, there were some 6,000 residents. “What is the maximum population that can live in decent conditions in Valletta? A study came up with a figure of 8,000. That should have been our target to increase its population over the next 20 years, because a city needs its living community.
If this is not strong, it will fail to be attractive in the long term.” Instead, Valletta’s population is “dropping like mad because it is unliveable” – down to around 4,000. “How many of these are white-collar local or foreigner residents? It is the local community I want to talk about.
The rest is all hotel rooms. “And what happens when it all backfires? You can turn a house into a hotel, but you cannot turn a hotel into a house,” the architect says. People cannot afford the city and get bought out.
“If you earn a salary of €18,000 and are offered €200,000 for your flat, you take it and move elsewhere.” These are all signals of what’s going to happen, according to Felice. “Have you noticed all the local shops have shut down? You cannot afford a shop in Valletta anymore and there is nothing but restaurants and cafés, which bring in double the rent.
“It is a deceptive market built on buying a room and getting more covers on either side of the road, creating a corridor in between for people to walk through. And then you can serve your burgers, sushi and dumplings all on the same menu to the tourists coming in on cheap flights. This model pumped up the rent, but it does not work for shops.
” Felice’s firm has also spent the last seven years working on the “most amazing project for the most amazing client” – fixing the spire of St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral. “But this stuff does not make the news. It is like a detachment from pride in our culture and heritage.
“Imagine a photo of Valletta without that spire! It is everything for the city. Since we always want to measure everything in money, then what is it worth? “We fail to recognise the value that St Paul’s and, for example, the upcoming tapestries museum at St John’s contribute to the economy.” Felice believes “business activism” is the way forward, and his architectural firm recently also won the Malta Business Awards for Best Cultural Business.
“I am amazed that an award was created for this and that we are beginning to understand that culture is also business and plays an important part in the economy.” You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use as our marketing platform.
By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing..
