Knowing and Unknowing: Development and Reconstruction Planning in Malta from 1943

Abstract

From 1940 to 1942 Malta sustained severe bombing and extensive damage. The paper analyses the plans for reconstruction that were made by the appointed consultants from 1943, and the way they and others implemented them. The experience of the consultants, Harrison and Hubbard, is traced, and it is concluded that they quickly developed sensitivity to the Maltese context. It is found that where Harrison and Hubbard carried out their own proposals generally positive outcomes resulted, but that when other designers worked at implementation their decisions often undermined the original design intentions. The difficulty of conveying the ‘knowing’ of strategies by their authors to those who may take them on later is identified as a continuing challenge for urban design today.

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks are due to Trevor Todd of the Royal Institute of British Architects, John Philips of the Royal Town Planning Institute and Adrian Allan and David Massey of Liverpool University for information about Harrison and Hubbard. Thanks also to Mark Cassar for his translation from the Maltese of those parts of Ganado's works that are concerned with the activities of Harrison and Hubbard. The author would also like to acknowledge Godwin Cassar, who inspired his research in Malta, and the valuable assistance that the author gained from the detailed analysis of Harrison and Hubbard's plans provided in the unpublished thesis of Joseph Spiteri (Spiteri, 1987).