Conrad Thake

by Conrad Thake How do you increase the physical landmass of a small island like ours? (without entering the merits of whether we should be even attempting to do that).The most obvious answer is reclamation of low-lying coastal areas with all the inherent ecological repercussions on the marine ecosystem. Proposals for land reclamation have recently resurfaced...

I by Conrad Thake One of the last surviving townhouses on the Sliema seafront has recently mutated into an undefinable combo – the carcass of the surviving two-storey facade with its once quaint bay-windows forcefully fused to, and in the process very much overpowered, by a modern apartment block of over seven floors with jagged zig-zag open...

by Conrad Thake A  recent contribution in the Sunday Times of Malta by my esteemed academic colleague Prof. Mark Anthony Falzon set me thinking beyond the traditional boundaries of the architectural profession. In his piece he ruminated on the fact that our rooftops could be much greener and that we could much better exploit the underground...

by Conrad Thake Architect Hans Munk Hansen (1929-) is not a household name not even in local architectural circles. Yet he has bequeathed us with one of the most well-designed and pleasant tourist complexes to be built in Malta – and I would venture to say by far the best in terms of architectural quality. The...

by Conrad Thake The former Australia Hall in Pembroke is today a sad carcass of a once dignified public building, with its interior totally gutted out and left in a state of utter dilapidation. During World War I (1914-1918), Malta had a special role to play as a nursing station within the...

by Conrad Thake Politicians of all hues and colours make it a point to be not only high visible but at times oppressively omnipresent in our lives. Fair game one might say, as after all we are all political animals of some sort. I was intrigued by the recent public announcement by ‘Heritage Malta’ announcing a...

by Conrad Thake The German-born British architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner once famously stated that “A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture.”  His distinction between what constitutes a mere building (presumably not involving the services of an architect) from architecture was that “anything that encloses space on a scale sufficient for...