FROM AN OLD EDWARDIAN

The St Edward’s College administration insisted on its pupils dedicating a considerable amount of their spare time to sport and game activities. Never having been prone to strenuous physical activity, or for that matter, sport in general, I soon devised a methodology to ensure minimal physical exertion during the many organized sport events, goalkeeper in football, wicketkeeper in cricket, and timekeeper for track events.

Although the school focused mainly on character-building and sports, I have no hesitation in lauding the effects the school had on my character formation and building selfesteem.

Apart from the college building’s typology, another architectural influence came from the annual cross-country college race which necessitated a considerable number of training sessions. These were held in the dirt tracks outside the college bastion walls, which provided me with more visual and mental inspiration than physical activity. The seventeenth-century defensive bastion walls were a formidable sight; mnemonic images still vivid in my mind to this day. What were even more influential were the Capuchin monastery and church on the cross-country track on the outskirts of Kalkara, an edifice built between 1736 and 1743. In 1758, the complex received the relics of Santa Liberata from Pope Benedict XIV; to this day the monastery bears the title of Santa Liberata.

As a stopover point in the cross-country track, the piazza provided not only a perfect resting place, but also an addictive visual attraction for its architectural composition and spatial organization. I was particularly drawn to the monastic complex; its ambiance and environment appealed not only to my visual sense, but also somehow moved me emotionally. It was about how the building and the piazza space, with their play of solids and voids, seemed to resonate in both my mind and spirit, operating more than on just a visual level, but also on a deeper emotional and psychological one.

It was there perhaps that I first came to understand that architecture is an all-embracing art and that the job of the architect should be that of creating loci that extend beyond mere materialistic function and rise to touch the emotions of its users. My encounter with the friary of Santa Liberata served as an awakening to my understanding that an architectural space can be not only visually rewarding, but also emotionally enriching. My cross-country stops at this eighteenth-century shrine were to provide further influences to my then already present penchant for a career as an architect.

Mentors from my college days I particularly remember include the English master Mr Quinn who enriched the class with his mnemonic quotes of verses of many of the great English poets and also the formidable Maths teacher Mr Hurst. Memories of their classes still linger strongly in my mind.

‘Education is the best provision for life’s journey’ wrote Aristotle. Indeed.