The treatment and landscaping of Maltese village spaces

Abstract

"The tradesman, the attorney, comes out of the din and the craft of the streets and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In the eternal calm, he finds himself." Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature", 1836 There is no shadow of doubt that the traditional villagescape provides a sequence of revelations or sudden contrasts in deviations of alignment, or setbacks on plan, which have a powerful effect, bringing the plan to life. However, comprehensive studies in the treatment of the same village spaces still lack; we rarely behold the effect of texture in hard-pavings shaded by the close-by buildings, or the effect of green, and the noisy and symbolic provision of water in fountains. Decorative paving should, at times, replace asphalt; foliage should pervade where necessary, even vest-pocket parks should trickle their way through; decent street furniture and pedestrian scale lighting should be introduced. The modern treatment of village spaces leaves much to be desired, exposing the insensitive equivalent of culture exigent on 'space' or 'non-place' , quantity and not quality - as the case study of Zebbug shows out. In the modern 'suburban crawl' of villages, landscape is being degraded, the characteristic traditional sequence of informal spaces is being outraged in preference to more formal layouts where treatment and landscaping sadly lack.