As a person involved in heritage work, I found the recent press release by Din l-Art Helwa supporting the proposal to carry out excavations on part of St. John’s Square extremely interesting. I was wondering why the oldest heritage body in Malta would endorse such an application when the MEPA Planning Directorate itself has written it off as a non-starter due to the risks involved. So I decided to do some excavating myself. The fact that Din l-Art Helwa are affiliated to the National Trust in the UK gave it a certain amount of credibility in my eyes until I dug deeper.
I have discovered that a certain Cynthia Degiorgio who is on the DLH committee is also Curator of the St John’s Foundation. The term conflict of interest springs to mind here in a big way! Given that working alongside her is St. John’s Foundation council member Richard Cachia Caruana who, as Malta’s permanent representative to the EU could be involved in the financing side of this project, the conflict becomes greater.
I have followed most of the press coverage, but there are many questions that have not yet been answered. How much is it all going to cost? I hear that the Malta Tourism Authority has already used up its budget for this year and can’t assist any tourism projects. This project is to be funded out of the EU ‘Sustainable Tourism’ programme for Malta – it would be interesting to know how much of that fund has been mopped up by this pet project of Richard Cachia Caruana, and what, if anything, has been left over for other worthy private projects. Precious little, I would hazard to guess.
Then again, how sustainable is it? At a time when the entire world is cutting down on air-conditioning and use of energy, we come along with a property that is completely dependent on the use of dehumidifiers, air-conditioners and air-exchangers 24 hours a day, a good percentage of which would be avoided by locating the museum above ground. How can it be that no one is asking what would happen in the case of a power cut (not exactly unknown in Malta)? And don’t give me the generator answer – even the best of generators have been known to fail. All it takes is a six-hour power cut and the tapestries are in serious trouble.
An engineer has told me that air-conditioning is not enough, the air has to be changed constantly, which would need air-ducting shafts to be placed along St. John’s Square! What about the flood risk? No underground building is ever completely free of such a hazard, is that something the Foundation is prepared to risk for the priceless Gobelins tapestries?
Many questions and very few answers. While I am all for the Foundation Museum showing its full collection, it has not said why it won’t even consider the suggestion of MEPA, heritage bodies, political parties and an NGO to convert an unused old building in Valletta. From photos I’ve seen, some are as close to the Cathedral as a chamber under St. John’s Street would be, so what’s the fuss about not wanting to disperse the collection? Furthermore, I strongly feel that anything which in any way disturbs the graves of the knights or in fact disrupts the visual integrity of the Co-Cathedral needs to be looked at very carefully and done in such a way that the public are kept fully informed at all stages. With a public monument of that calibre, how come a public presentation was not carried out before the project was submitted? The fact that the Foundation submitted it two weeks before the election with no debate, does smack of trying to sneak it through unnoticed.
Really, however, the crux of the matter boils down to MEPA’s reported verdict: "the project to excavate St. John’s Street and Square is a "non starter" due to the risk of potential damage to the foundations of St John’s Cathedral" Further comment I believe is superfluous.

Francesca Meilaq
London