This
is Malta.
We don't go in for bridges of poetry. We just lay the planks across.
Bridge-building
is something that we in Malta
have not taken much to heart, since we consider the exercise as simply one of
getting people and merchandise from one place to another over a drop or ravine.
We are crassly utilitarian.
We do not think
of bridges as possibly being objects of beauty. The Italians do, but not we. The highways of Italy, in particular are remarkable
for the number of spectacular and poetic bridges that cross them, or that the
roads themselves cross.
Simply slapping
down a horizontal slab of metal grid or concrete passage never occurs to the
Italians as sufficiently beholden to eyes bred on beauty.
Not in Malta. We go
for the cheapest and the most humdrum, with the hateful expression that betrays
our mediocrity, on our lips or in our thoughts: "Mhux
xorta?" (It's all the same). Mhux xorta?
is always on our tongue
Bridging the
Gaps in Malta
Times
of Malta
Norbert
Ellul-Vincenti
February
6, 2007
So this morning,
on one of my usual early walks across the spectacular Valletta Waterfront (much
credit there to the builders), I notice that after long months of late
re-structuring, the bridge across the new mouth of the inland water has been
laid. It is steel, straight and plain.
What a fool I was
to expect something to feast the eye. This is Malta. We don't go in for bridges
of poetry. We just lay the planks across. The result was exactly as I had
feared while nursing a glimmer of hope.
Perhaps we should
have taken a page from the new Archbishop's book. Mgr Paul
Cremona has
gone on record as saying that he thinks he is a good bridge-builder.
Bridge-builders and fence-menders are experts that greatly benefit society,
though it must be admitted that fences may hedge people separately rather than
bring them together. They use tact and good-handling to bring people into
harmony.
But
bridge-building is something that we in Malta have not taken much to heart,
since we consider the exercise as simply one of getting people and merchandise
from one place to another over a drop or ravine. We are crassly utilitarian.
We do not think
of bridges as possibly being objects of beauty. The Italians do, the Spanish,
the Swiss and the Germans, but not we. The highways of Italy, in
particular are remarkable for the number of spectacular and poetic bridges that
cross them, or that the roads themselves cross.
Simply slapping
down a horizontal slab of metal grid or concrete passage never occurs to the
Italians as sufficiently beholden to eyes bred on beauty.
Not in Malta. We go
for the cheapest and the most humdrum, with the hateful expression that betrays
our mediocrity, on our lips or in our thoughts: "Mhux
xorta?" (It's all the same). Mhux xorta?
is always on our tongue.
"Xorta l-ilma bahar,"
we say, recognising that mediocrity does not get you
anywhere beautifully. We require more than zalzett
and hobz biz-zejt to exist.
We crave beauty. Man does not live by bread alone.
While we are on
the subject of bridges, and remembering the heavy jolts of decades on the Regional Road Bridge,
we may wonder why a major bridge can reach restoration age without a way having
been found to make clean, unbumpable joints on the
driving surface. One would have thought that it would have been no great
invention to make movable parts of the bridge surface to meet not at an angle
but on a gentle tarmac curve, so that bumps on the bridge and jolts on the
cars' suspension system could have been avoided.
The bridge that
connects Bahar-ic-Caghaq with Gharghur
is about the only poetic one in Malta,
but that was built a long time ago and we can hardly take credit for it. So was
the one now leading the masses into Valletta
and hosting a bazaar of weird eatables, drinkables and wearables.
Bridging a gap on supporting arches of stone is about as far as we dare go.
Otherwise we opt for the straight horizontal.
Whether in the
fields or in towns, across valleys or between towers, we have not yet coveted
the beauty of Mostar
Bridge or Birmingham's
Iron Bridge, and the thousands of others that
pepper more creative countries. Solutions such as the one in Strait Street between law courts, are hard to find. The panzer steel bridge beneath St
Elmo, on the way to the breakwater in Valletta,
bathroom-blue painted, is as unsightly as any.
Have I opened my
mouth too early for the Waterfront bridge? Will
somebody quickly write in to say that it is really going to be in keeping with
the rest of the creativity? I hope they do. I hope nobody needs a layman's
advice, and that bridge-building in Malta is breathing deep and fresh
from newly-opened windows.
Far be it for me,
as a layman who knows nothing about bridge-building, to put into question Malta's
seasoned national engineering qualities in the bridging compartment. But why
may I not comment, for I have crossed many bridges in my life when it came to
crossing bridges?
I have danced in
the middle of them, contemplated the murky floods below without yearning for
suicide and pushed along with the proverbial water under many of them. So here
goes. I wish we could learn a thing or two from Calatrava's
ways of joining up divided banks. And it doesn't have to be Calatrava
even.