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You are here: Home / Towns & Villages / Now you see it, now you don’t: Valletta’s City Gate

Now you see it, now you don’t: Valletta’s City Gate

by Liz Ayling
May 13, 2011September 20, 2016Filed under:
  • Towns & Villages

A praying mantis. The pair of diggers getting rid of the blot on the landscape – what I have always thought of as architecture reminiscent of Castro’s Cuba. Captured as ‘an exclusive’ for us by David Pisani of Transit, the multimedia project documenting the changes in Valletta during the Renzo Piano project.

I won’t miss City Gate. But I do wonder about the next edifice to rise up in this space. Malta’s new parliament.

You can see its foundations in the photo below. I feel it’s a shame we can’t have an open square; a precious green lung for Valletta instead. Even with the airiness the parliament is being designed, we won’t have this view of St James Cavalier, standing proud watching over Valletta’s entrance. So, catch it while you can, glimpsed over the hoardings.

Some 60 or so MPs, admin staff and offices could have been housed in disused, grand spaces like St Elmo. A prime site at Valletta’s entrance will be used now by a minority. Obviously if you’re in power you can’t grant yourself an office where you like. Let’s think more positively about it though; a new parliament perhaps as the symbol of a more modern-thinking and forward-facing Malta? Then again, it might be a face-lift to old agendas.

City Gate demolition showing St James Cavalier

Rising like Phoenix from the ashes. Malta's new parliament foundations.

Photos: courtesy, David Pisani, Transit.

Tagged:
  • architecture
  • Valletta

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About Liz Ayling

Liz Ayling is a serial blogger, feature writer and self-taught geek who has been an expat in Malta for over 20 years. She founded destination site Malta InsideOut in 2009. You'll find her at at her screen in an old village farmhouse which she shares with her Maltese husband, teenage son and two cats. Liz considers herself an insider nowadays but never ceases to be surprised by all that Malta has to offer.

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Comments

  1. Charles john says

    April 30, 2013 at 02:58

    I realy miss the old gate i was born fuq puturjal and lived opposite the old picket house

  2. Charles says

    February 13, 2012 at 07:06

    I miss the old city gate i was born near the Vernon club

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