Limestone

For those arriving in Malta via air, the eye pressed against the plane window is overwhelmed with the sandy beige color of drying fields and globigerina starkly contrasted with the ever-fluctuating turquoise hue of the sea. The sea, whose limestone bottom is made under pressure from the skeletal fragments of creatures long past, reminding one that all elements are finite. Reminding one of eternal recurrence and unity. The limestone bottom emerges from the sea in the form of cathedrals and citadels, sidewalks and ramparts, stairways and diving boards, walkways and pavilions. It descends back into the sea in the discarded shells of mussels from a seaside bistro, the garlic soaked langoustine that slips between the fingers of a child on a sailboat. Eventually the sea will swallow the island whole. You get the picture, its cyclical.

There is a union of places and spaces with the seamless transition from shore to sidewalk to building held together by the ubiquitous use of limestone. The buildings are free of the visual mark of ownership common to modern architecture, seeming at one with the landscape rather than at odds with it. While modern buildings (think Rotterdam) silently fight each other across streets, each demanding to be most present, there seems to be a convivial agreement here between structures who recognize their common ancestry and common future. Obviously, there is the element of necessity, one works with the materials one has on hand. As Murray pointed out, the Netherlands uses bricks because there is an abundance of wet earth, Malta uses limestone because that what the island is made of. But what of the intersection between aesthetics and logistics? Could the use of limestone come from something other than a pragmatic intention? Or can pragmatism and art be the same thing? Do I find limestone so beautiful by virtue of the fact that I do not get to see it often? Do Maltese people find bricks more beautiful than stone, a function of the exotic?

The seamless transition from seaside to sidewalk to building has a calming effect. It reminds me of being a child, when it seemed the world was made just for me and everything was precisely in the place it belonged. This calming effect is made more apparent in contrast with the simmering irritation I feel at the sight of construction sights, whose eventual productions will house wealthy tourists and tower over the bay, casting shadows on tiny fishing boats menacingly. I realize though that this irritation, often premised as ideological, is in reality selfish. Why are those ugly buildings blocking the ones I find pretty *nasal American voice*. Who am I to condemn that which brings jobs, which stimulates economy, which brings people to the island? I am a voyeur, and I am displeased at the disruption of the meal that my eyes wish to feast upon. Perhaps the aim of the voyeur, the aim of this digestion of beauty is to regain that feeling from childhood – to perceive the world as made for me, united through my eyes.

[Blog by Sophie Valour]