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Construction and Culture: Baukultur and Malta - Alex Torpiano
from Vigilo 56
by dinlarthelwa
CONSTRUCTION AS CULTURE BAU KUL TUR
AND MALTA
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by Alex Torpiano
Many European languages have imported English words into their daily vocabulary. There are relatively few German words that have been imported into the English language. One such word is Baukultur.
In German, words are often composite, formed by the combination of simpler words into a single one, but with a meaning that is more than that of the individual words put together. Baukultur is one such word, even if it is not a particularly long composite word.
Baukultur is often translated roughly into the culture of building. But it is actually much more than that; it is about considering construction as culture, and considering the shaping of our environment, built and unbuilt, as primarily a cultural act.
The term Baukultur is not an alternative word for ‘Architektur’ – architecture – or even for good architecture. In January 2018, ministers of culture of country signatories of the European Cultural Convention (including Malta), adopted the Davos Declaration ‘Towards a high-quality Baukultur for Europe’. When these European countries signed up to the Declaration, the raison d’être was the realization that there was: a “trend towards a loss of quality in both the built environment and open landscapes”; a “trivialisation of construction”; “a lack of design values”; and “a growth of faceless urban sprawl”. It will quickly be recognised that these concerns are really topical for Malta.
As the same Declaration emphasises, Baukultur is not about beautiful buildings; it is about “every human activity that changes the built environment”. So it is not limited to good architecture, and by extension, it is not about architects, but has to include the roles of many parties, including workers, public authorities, politicians, contractors, the general public, and so on. It is not limited to urban conservation areas, but is conceived to extend to all our living environment, including suburban and rural areas, towns and villages, industrial zones, and road infrastructure.
An environment worth living in
Baukultur is about an environment which is worth living in. It is an approach which includes the planning processes for building projects and infrastructures and open landscapes. It includes the process and detail of construction. It is about, the Declaration emphasizes, “prioritizing cultural values over short-term economic gain”.
In order to fulfill the Baukultur objectives it is necessary that, to the social, ecological and economic dimensions that we are, more or less, familiar with, we should add and prioritise an emotional and aesthetic dimension.
This would mean EVERY activity which is proposed within the built and unbuilt environment, whether it is about putting up electricity poles and bill-boards, or about building roads, or bus-stops. It means that whether the proposed building fulfills development control or height limitations or building regulation requirements or not, the primary criterion against which the proposal is assessed will be cultural, including the aesthetic.
One particularly important statement in the Davos Declaration is that Baukultur is about an investment in the living space of the future.
Baukultur and Malta
What about Malta? Perhaps, it would be easier to explain what Baukultur in Malta is not. It is certainly not about urban areas without trees; it is not about bill boards replacing trees lining our vehicular thoroughfares; it is not about electricity cables draped all over our village streets; it is not about broken pavements, leaning lighting or traffic poles.
Let us be clear. In Malta, we are far from understanding Baukultur, let alone embracing it. This does not mean that we do not have any beautiful buildings. But we certainly do not understand the construction process as a cultural act – although we do accept that our forefathers did put up attractive buildings, attractive urban spaces and, indeed, more attractive landscapes, which now form the mainstay of our tourism industry. Our planning and development control processes use the wrong model, because they are conceived as a series of regulations, against bullet point requirements.
This does not mean that, for example, Design Guidelines are not a useful tool. However, the text, or perhaps the interpretation of these ‘guidelines’ misses the main objective, which is that every contribution to the built environment has to contribute to the visual order and delight – yes, let us have the courage to use the word ‘beautiful’, a word which is unfortunately missing in our planning rules. This is fundamental to our current well-being, but also to the integrity of the legacy that we are obliged to bequeath to future generations.
In Design Guidelines published a couple of years ago in the United Kingdom, the drive for
these new guidelines was literally to put beauty in the heart of design. However, it is important that guidelines are not conceived only for buildings, as they are in our planning system (and not even for all buildings for that matter, because, for example, industrial buildings are exempt from planning scrutiny!).
The context of development
The key to the creation of high-quality Baukultur is to take into account the context of development, that is, the surrounding built and natural environment, and its history. “High-quality Baukultur is not identical with built heritage quality”, and should not be mistaken as a collection of places “in an inventory, or in a list of monuments”. However, the concept of high-quality Baukultur implies that we should not only protect built heritage, but should integrate “its substance and values in any planning and building activity, making it a valuable part of encompassing Baukultur and preserving it for future generations”.
Recently, the Swiss Federal Office Culture, which was a prime promoter of the 2018 Davos Declaration, published a guide for a Baukultur Quality System, intended to assess and improve the quality of Baukultur in a specific place – of whatever scale. The guide highlights eight criteria, which summary I would like to reproduce below:
A place is determined by Governance, based on participatory democracy, with good process and management of places;
Functionality addresses the level of satisfaction of human needs and purposes;
Respect for the natural Environment with mitigation of climate change contributes to the sustainability of a place;
Economy with long life cycle and long-term viability of places is an important component of quality;
Diversity ensures vibrancy and social inclusion;
The particular spatial Context of a place with its physical and temporal characteristics, such as the shape and design of buildings, neighbourhoods, villages and landscapes, and respect for built heritage has a great impact on the quality of a place; A specific Sense of Space is created through social fabric, history, memories, colours, and odours of a place, producing its identity and the attachment of people to it;
Finally, places of high quality are authentic and respond to the human need for Beauty.”
This may sound like an obvious, but too utopistic, vision of what development of our environment should be. But there are some key ideas which are worth embracing. For example, good Governance implies placespecific, and quality-oriented, planning processes, facilitating real public engagement, and inclusive decision-making, rather than behind-the-scenes lobbying with politicians, for the latter to ‘direct’ the Planning Authority – as boasted by a leading developer in a recent media interview, and as exemplified by the sad planning story of the Jerma Hotel Development Brief.
Planning should change from a politiciandriven process, to one that is preceded by public workshops, allowing both public education as well as involvement in discussing planning options. Perhaps this can best be achieved by engaging independent multidisciplinary teams to facilitate a broad debate on the quality of place, as well as by promoting public design competitions, or public reviews.
Functionality requires the promulgation of a good set of performance-based building standards and regulations. It requires a drive to make urban areas more walkable and more bikeable. Respect for the Environment requires us to think of green open spaces, appropriate density, and occupancy of urban areas. Diversity implies the promotion of shared activities, in contrast to dormitory residential areas, gentrification and ghettoization. Context implies that one does not merely rely on universally and blindly applied building height limitations, but of design proposals which dialogue with the existing qualities and the Sense of a Place. Ultimately, Beauty goes beyond mere façade design, with details of ‘Maltese character’ – a valid aesthetic policy cannot be based on a compendium of acceptable ‘features’ but on an overall contribution to the well-being and life satisfaction of people.
Is it too late?
There may be the objection that it is too late for us to adopt these principles, since most of our built areas are now what they are. For a start, I would suggest that development in the large
The public sector has to lead by example. This includes the promotion of architecture design competitions for all projects funded by public money.
areas now added to the developable zones, through the rationalization exercise, should be guided exclusively in accordance with these principles, and not left to the developer/owners to propose more sterile urban residential areas, as has been happening in many places. It should not be the principle of mere ‘ownership’ that determines the form of development, but ‘the public interest for the common good’.
These are some proposals
The public sector has to lead by example. No public money should be spent on any project that impinges on the built environment, without being deemed to satisfy a much higher level of cultural and aesthetic criteria. This includes the promotion of architecture design competitions for all projects funded by public money. It includes also having the courage to take decisions that do not glibly put ‘economy’ at the top of the decision-making process. It also includes time for a proper interaction with the public, specifically to raise awareness on the cultural and aesthetic value of the proposed project.
The private sector has to get involved in the design of, and investment in, the public realm within the wider context of their private projects – which are, after all, effectively allowed by the community for the benefit of the community. The level of skill in our construction operators has to be raised by intensive training and exposure to the concept that any piece of work that they undertake has to be done with ‘love’, as if it were to be located within their own living room. Current operators have lost what we used to call ‘l-amor proprju’ – the pride in their work – possibly because we have lost the processes of apprenticeships with master craftsmen.
The most important radical change that is required is probably a change in attitude towards the areas that lie outside established urban settlements. These are the areas which we euphemistically call ODZ. In truth, these areas are full of development, from agriculture buildings, to roads, to electricity power cables, to retaining walls. These areas need to be ‘designed’. We do not need policies on what can be built in ODZ (the Rural Policy); we need detailed landscape plans for our countryside.
Finally, our planning and regulatory model has to be re-designed from scratch, to be realigned with the objectives of Baukultur. It has to be taken away from the world of real estate development to the world of culture.
A radical change
Effectively, what is proposed is not simply about planning permits, but about a more radical transformation of our construction and building industry. What is proposed is a radical change in our spatial planning philosophy, so that it really works ‘the public interest for the common good’. It is not sufficient to send delegations to these important European meetings, such as Davos 2018, to sign radical conventions, if we then continue to pay lip service to adherence to the principles expounded in these conventions.
Baukultur can indicate a way of not only preserving the legacy of our built and natural environment, but of creating the cultural heritage of future generations, an act that also guarantees the long-term well-being of the people who live in, and who visit, our country. n
