We need to try to fix what we built – Alan Xuereb
Is there still hope for overdeveloped Malta? Many have lost hope in what Martin Heidegger would call the “dwelling” space of our minuscule polis. This dwelling space includes both urban and non-urban areas. I was particularly delighted by an opinion piece written by an architect in the Times of Malta (September 19). At one point, architect Clive Borg-Bonaci justly states that he is attempting “to initiate a discourse on architecture” which he believes is lacking. I totally agree with him. Firstly, I am truly in agreement with the author’s reference to Philippe Daverio’s claim that architecture cannot be avoided. I have argued in academic circles outside of Malta that ultimately nearly all man-made forms of aesthetic experience like music, painting and literature can be avoided whilst our cityscapes are somehow an unavoidable presence. I am no architect so my interest is not in the technical aspect of building or planning, it is in the existential aspect of architecture, what Christian Norberg-Schulz would call the phenomenology of architecture. In Genius Loci, Norberg-Schulz stressed the connection between the man-made world and the natural world. The existential purpose of...