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?

[Blog by Sophie Valour]
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