“……hija l-fehma ta’ dan it- Tribunal li tali rapporti jaqghu taht it-tifsira ta’ dokument pubbliku li huwa fl-interess pubbliku li l-pubbliku jkollu access ghalih tenut kont li l-materja ta’ konservazzjoni hija materija ta’ interess pubbliku.” This is part of the sentence, dated 12th February 2019, by the Appeal Tribunal for Information and Data Protection, wherein Din l-Art Ħelwa was given the...
The discipline of archaeology teaches us that no copy or imitiation, no matter how cleverly done can substitute the original. There is an intrinsic importance in the original artifact, which links us with the time when this was created, in a way that a copy cannot. The same principle applies to buildings; whether they originate from an archaic age, such...
It takes 20 minutes for a whole street of law-abiding citizens to have their lives turned upside down, and the same amount of time for an iconic viewof a major landmark to be stolen from the public gaze forever. This is what happens when an eight-storey hotel is given the green light in a ‘residential buffer zone’. This is what happens when...
by Maria Grazia Cassar We have heard the phrase that we did not ‘inherit’ our world but are taking care of it for future generations so often that the severity of this claim no longer has any impact on our sensitivity. We live, we use, we thrive and it is all in the moment, without any real consideration of the future. Contrary to...
by Maria Grazia Cassar In September this year, Din l-Art Ħelwa had the honour and pleasure of hosting Professor Simon Molesworth AO QC, his wife Lindy and daughter Anika, for a week in Malta. While here he called on the President of Malta, the Minister of the Environment, gave a public talk at the Valletta Campus of the University of Malta,...
by Maria Grazia Cassar What a pity, what a shame! Another old building is about to be demolished. It will be gone forever, the irreplaceable loss of the historic urban fabric of the important Naxxar village core. Such news makes one feel impotent in the face of the destructive onslaught of greed, where developers will stop at nothing to make a fast...